Shares of Cantor Equity Partners (
CEP
)—a
blank check company
headed by Brandon Lutnick, son of
President Trump's commerce secretary
—soared 50% on Thursday, a day after it announced a deal to take “Bitcoin-native” Twenty One, “a newly formed entity,” public via
SPAC
merger. The stock has risen more than 200% since Wednesday's announcement.
Twenty One is expected to go public with more than 42,000 bitcoin, the third-largest corporate bitcoin treasury in the world. The company will be majority-owned by stablecoin issuer
Tether
and its affiliated exchange
Bitfinex
, which are supplying 31,500 bitcoin. Investment holding company SoftBank has agreed to purchase some of Tether’s shares to take “significant minority ownership.”
In a pitch to private investors, the company said it would “leverage its Bitcoin to generate returns for shareholders and benefit from Bitcoin’s potential for price appreciation.”
The Trump administration was one element of the company's pitch. In March, Trump ordered the
creation of a bitcoin reserve
and has advocated for Congress and federal agencies to develop a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies.
Twenty One follows in the footsteps of
Michael Saylor’s
Strategy (
MSTR
), formerly MicroStrategy, which in recent years has morphed from a company that makes software to a company that
issues stock to collect Bitcoin
. Beyond accumulating Bitcoin, Twenty One says it plans “to accelerate Bitcoin adoption” at the corporate and sovereign level through media operations and develop “Bitcoin-related financial and advisory services.”
The company will be led by Jack Mallers, the founder and CEO of Strike, a payments platform. Mallers, the company said, is “one of Bitcoin’s most influential advocates” and “was instrumental” in El Salvador’s decision to become the first country to recognize Bitcoin as
fiat currency
.