Key Takeaways
Jack Mallers stepped down as Twenty One Capital CEO on July 20, returning full time to Strike.Raphael Zagury now leads Twenty One Capital, which holds 43,514 BTC value roughly $2.9 billion.XXI shares fell on July 21 because the Strike merger plan collapsed and Elektron talks proceed.
Mallers co-founded Twenty One Capital and led the corporate by its December 2025 debut on the New York Inventory Alternate (NYSE) through a merger with Cantor Fairness Companions. He and the corporate constructed the agency round a big bitcoin treasury and framed it as a bitcoin native different to conventional company buildings.
“I’ve determined to step down as CEO of Twenty One,” Mallers wrote on the social media platform X. “My life’s work stays bitcoin. My bitcoin firm is Strike. The work continues.”
Mallers Returns Full Time to Strike
Mallers is returning full-time to Strike, the bitcoin funds firm he leads. He and Zagury are working collectively on the handoff. “I’m grateful to everybody at XXI and everybody who believed in what we constructed,” Mallers disclosed.
Three-Approach Merger Falls Aside
The management change got here alongside the collapse of a proposed three-way merger between Twenty One Capital, Strike, and Elektron Vitality, the bitcoin mining agency Zagury based. Twenty One first raised the thought of mixing the three corporations on April 29, 2026. Strike will now stay impartial. A attainable mixture with Elektron remains to be beneath evaluation, although the corporate stated any such deal would want approval as a associated individual transaction beneath Texas legislation, given Zagury’s ties to each companies.
Who Is Raphael Zagury
Zagury spent years on Wall Road, holding roles at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Financial institution, and Merrill Lynch earlier than co-founding funding financial institution One Companions and Brazilian fintech lender OpenCo. He had already served as an impartial director at Twenty One Capital and as interim chair of its audit committee.
“My job is to construct the working firm round it, with the self-discipline, governance, and executional rigor of an establishment,” Zagury stated, referring to the corporate’s bitcoin steadiness sheet.
“On behalf of the Board of Administrators, I want to thank Jack for his imaginative and prescient and management in founding Twenty One Capital, and for guiding the Firm by its enterprise mixture and profitable itemizing on the New York Inventory Alternate in December 2025,” Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino, who sits on Twenty One’s board, wrote on Tuesday.
The Bitcoin Treasury and New Priorities
Twenty One Capital holds 43,514 BTC, the second-largest company bitcoin treasury behind Technique. At present costs, the holding is value near $2.9 billion, in opposition to a value foundation close to $3.69 billion.
The corporate disclosed in its announcement that it’s going to give attention to 5 priorities going ahead: company governance, constructing working companies, increasing capital markets exercise, disciplined acquisitions, and a bitcoin-backed lending platform.
Inventory Response and What Comes Subsequent
Shares of XXI (NYSE: XXI) fell on July 21 following the information, buying and selling within the $4.60 to $5.40 vary intraday. The inventory has traded effectively under its 2025 peak of round $47 and stays extremely tied to bitcoin’s value and to investor sentiment towards treasury corporations that maintain bitcoin with out producing a lot working money circulate. Shares are down 53% from the height, and round 45% of these losses got here from the previous six months.
The corporate’s subsequent earnings report is predicted in early August, when buyers will search for extra particulars on the Elektron discussions and on how Zagury plans to show a bitcoin treasury right into a cash-generating enterprise.
