Tether-Backed Twenty One Scraps Three-Way Merger With…

Twenty One Capital, Strike, and Elektron Energy have abandoned the three-way merger Tether proposed in April, with Jack Mallers stepping down as Twenty One Capital’s chief executive and Elektron chief Raphael Zagury taking over the role. The reversal unwinds a plan meant to fold Bitcoin treasury holdings, crypto trading, and mining into a single Tether-backed public company. Strike now intends to continue as a standalone business, while Twenty One and Elektron keep their own discussions alive.

The three firms confirmed to Bloomberg News, which first reported the split, that they no longer plan to combine. Mallers, who has run both Twenty One Capital and Strike since the April 2025 Tether-backed launch, has left the Twenty One role, and Zagury has assumed it.

Strike will stay independent, with no remaining plan to merge into Twenty One. The payments firm has kept expanding on its own, securing a New York BitLicense and money transmitter license from the NYDFS in March. Talks between Twenty One and Elektron continue, a pairing supported by Elektron’s economics. The miner manages roughly 50 exahashes per second, about 5% of the Bitcoin network, at an all-in production cost below $60,000 per coin against a spot price near $66,400. Tether holds majority stakes in both companies.

Twenty One Shifts Direction Under Zagury

Tether floated the structure in April to fold three distinct crypto businesses into what the company’s own filings billed as “the premier listed Bitcoin company in the world”: Twenty One Capital’s digital-asset treasury, Strike’s crypto trading, and Elektron’s Bitcoin mining. Three months later, only the mining leg remains under consideration.

Tether ranks as the largest stablecoin issuer globally and has deepened its own mining footprint alongside a broad range of investments. Digital-asset treasuries have struggled as Bitcoin’s price has slumped, driving financial losses and job cuts across major crypto firms. The companies did not spell out why the combination fell apart.

Zagury told Bloomberg the businesses are still looking for a path forward. “The structure evolved as Jack decided to focus full-time on Strike,” he said, adding that Twenty One is now building the operating, governance, and capital markets foundation for its next phase. He wants Twenty One Capital to move beyond simply accumulating Bitcoin and toward generating cash flow and sharpening how it allocates capital. The revised strategy leans on acquiring operating businesses, widening the company’s capital markets tools, and developing Bitcoin-backed lending.

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Tether Reshapes Its Bitcoin Franchise

Tether chief Paolo Ardoino credited Mallers with founding the company, saying he “took conviction in Bitcoin and turned it into a public company.” Ardoino described Zagury as a disciplined operator suited to the standards Twenty One needs for its next phase of growth.

The reshuffle fits Tether’s broader evolution beyond stablecoins, a push that has seen the company direct profits into artificial intelligence, energy, Bitcoin mining, telecommunications, and commodities and increasingly resemble a diversified holding company rather than a pure USDT issuer. That expansion has accelerated as higher global interest rates lifted returns on the U.S. Treasury securities backing much of USDT.

Twenty One Capital, based in Austin, Texas and listed on the NYSE as XXI, completed its SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners, backed by Tether, SoftBank Group (since bought out by Tether) and Cantor Fitzgerald. It held more than 40,000 Bitcoin at the time, then the third-largest corporate holding, and now holds roughly 43,514 BTC, ranking second behind Strategy according to BitcoinTreasuries.net. The stock has since slumped more than 92% from an April peak of $59.75 to $4.51.

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