Twenty One Capital, a new Bitcoin treasury company led by Strike founder Jack Mallers with the support of Tether, SoftBank and Cantor Fitzgerald, is looking to supplant Michael Saylor’s Strategy to become the “superior vehicle for investors seeking capital-efficient Bitcoin exposure.”

Twenty One revealed it plans to launch with 42,000 Bitcoin (BTC) (worth $3.9 billion) with roughly 23,950 BTC coming from Tether, 10,500 BTC from Softbank and 7,000 BTC from Bitfinex, which will be converted into equity at $10 per share, according to an April 23 statement.

The firm is seeking a public listing via a blank-check merger with Cantor Equity Partners and will trade under the ticker XXI on the Nasdaq once it finalizes an agreement with investors to raise $585 million through convertible bonds and equity financing.

“Our mission is simple: to become the most successful company in Bitcoin, the most valuable financial opportunity of our time. We’re not here to beat the market, we’re here to build a new one,” said Mallers, the founder and CEO of Bitcoin payments-focused firm Strike.

“A public stock, built by Bitcoiners, for Bitcoiners.”

Twenty One specifically compared its business model to Strategy’s in an investor presentation to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, claiming it is potentially a “superior vehicle for investors seeking capital-efficient Bitcoin exposure.”

It claimed that Strategy’s ability to create shareholder value through future Bitcoin purchases will be limited because the firm — which holds 534,741 BTC — would need to make even larger investments to increase its Bitcoin Per Share, or BPS, thus diminishing the per-share dollar impact of future capital deployments.

Twenty One said it would be a more “pure play” for investors seeking Bitcoin exposure with Bitcoin-native operations and more “flexibility” for strategic capital raises. 

Twenty One Capital’s comparison of its Bitcoin treasury plan with that of Strategy’s. Source: SEC

A launch of 42,000 Bitcoin would make Twenty One the third-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, trailing only Strategy and Bitcoin mining firm  MARA Holdings, which holds 47,600 BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET data.

Twenty One plans to do more than just stack Bitcoin

Twenty One also intends to build out several Bitcoin-focused offerings, including Bitcoin debt and equity products, an advisory service, a lending platform and an educational platform.

“Twenty One’s mission will be to accelerate Bitcoin adoption and Bitcoin literacy at both institutional and retail levels,” the firm said.

Related: Bitcoin ETF inflows top 500 times 2025 average in ‘significant deviation’

The firm will also partner with industry players to host Bitcoin conferences.

Twenty One Capital’s three-stage business plan. Source: SEC

The news sparked a massive 54.2% price rally in Cantor Equity Partners (CEP) shares to $16.50 on April 23 and has risen another 25.1% in after-hours, Google Finance data shows. CEP will convert to XXI once the $585 million agreement is completed.

The venture strengthens Tether’s ties with Cantor, which manages US Treasury reserves backing Tether’s USDT, which boasts a market cap of $145.3 billion. Cantor also owns a 5% stake in the stablecoin issuer.

Twenty One will be majority-owned by Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex, while Japanese investment holding firm SoftBank will own a “significant” minority share.

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Traders are embracing diametrically opposed exchange-traded fund (ETF) strategies in a bid to navigate one of the most unpredictable financial markets in recent history, according to data from Bloomberg Intelligence. 

The year-to-date has seen record inflows to ETFs providing leveraged long exposure to volatile assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies, as well as funds holding risk-off assets such as cash and gold, the data shows. 

“[T]here’s basically record flows going into leveraged long ETFs but also cash and gold ETFs as people buy the dip and hedge the dip at the same time. May the best degen win!,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas said in an April 23 post on the X platform.

Leveraged ETFs are funds that aim to multiply the daily performance of assets like stocks or crypto, often by two or three times.

In 2025, leveraged long ETFs attracted net inflows of roughly $6 billion, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Meanwhile, inflows into cash and gold funds approached roughly $4 billion. 

Net inflows into leveraged long ETFs and cash and fold ETFs. Source: Bloomberg Intelligence

Digital gold?

The record fund flows come amid a spike in market turbulence after US President Donald Trump announced plans for sweeping tariffs on US imports on April 2.

Since then, the S&P 500, an index of large US stocks, has shed roughly 5% of its value, according to data from Google Finance. Bitcoin (BTC), meanwhile, has been comparatively resilient. 

On April 22, the cryptocurrency’s spot price reclaimed $90,000 per coin for the first time in six weeks, with Bitcoin ETFs clocking nearly $1 billion in net inflows. The cryptocurrency trades above $93,000 as of April 23, according to data from Google Finance.

“Even in the wake of recent tariff announcements, BTC has shown some signs of resilience, holding steady or rebounding on days when traditional risk assets faltered,” Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said in an April research report.  

Bitcoin has often been referred to as “digital gold” but the cryptocurrency still has a weak correlation to the safe haven asset and trades more in line with equities, Binance said. Its correlation with gold has averaged around 0.12 over the past 90 days, versus 0.32 for equities.  

“The key question is whether BTC can return to its long-term pattern of low correlation with equities,” noted the report, adding that gold is still a preferred safe-haven asset for most investors.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchanges are profiting off of rising volatility by doubling down on financial derivatives, such as futures. 

In April, net open interest in Bitcoin futures increased by upward of 30%, to approximately $28 billion, according to data from Coinalyze. 

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Official Trump (TRUMP) jumped 52% on April 23 after the announcement of an exclusive in-person dinner for the top tokenholders with US President Donald Trump. For some crypto advocates, this marks the end of the bear market, especially as Bitcoin (BTC) bounced back above $93,000, but others raise suspicions on how sustainable the TRUMP memecoin rally really is.

From a purely performance perspective, the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin has been a disappointment. After soaring above $75 on launch day, its gains quickly disappeared as investors noticed the high concentration of tokens and the short-term vesting period. 

At first sight, it is difficult to justify TRUMP’s current market capitalization of $2.6 billion, given that 80% of the supply was allocated to founders and entities controlled by Trump.

Official Trump (TRUMP) market capitalization, USD. Source: CoinMarketCap

For comparison, well-established projects such as Arbitrum (ARB), Jupiter (JUP), and Maker (MKR) hold a capitalization below $1.6 billion. Those token valuations derive from buybacks using treasury reserves or direct benefits in staking and DeFi mechanisms. For instance, Arbitrum, a leading Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, holds $2.4 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL). 

Jupiter, the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana, boasts $2.3 billion in deposits and has accrued $76.6 million in fees over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama data. Meanwhile, Sky (formerly Maker), the project behind the extremely successful DAI stablecoin, holds $5.9 billion TVL and $28.6 million in 30-day fees.

TRUMP still ranks in the top 10 for trading activity

Besides being listed on major exchanges, including Binance, Bybit, OKX, Coinbase, Upbit, and Kraken, and often promoted on social media by Trump, the memecoin holds an impressive share in derivatives markets. Notably, its futures open interest stands at $700 million, a top-10 overall.

TRUMP futures aggregate open interest, USD. Source: CoinGlass

Established projects with market capitalizations over $6 billion, such as Chainlink (LINK), Litecoin (LTC), and Polkadot (DOT) have smaller futures open interest than TRUMP. Still, while demand for futures markets allows larger traders to take part in the action, it does not necessarily imply optimism as longs (buyers) and shorts (sellers) are matched at all times.

Even though TRUMP is currently trading 84% below its all-time high, it remains a top-10 token in terms of volume. In fact, excluding the stablecoins, only 4 cryptocurrencies surpassed TRUMP’s impressive $3.84 billion 24-hour turnover, according to CoinGecko data.

24-hour USD trading volume ranking. Source: CoinGlass / Cointelegraph

Despite the huge trading activity, a single promotional event with US President Trump is unlikely to create lasting demand for the TRUMP memecoin, putting the current $13.50 price tag in check. Unless the project eases investors’ concerns about token unlocks, there is hardly a way to justify the 50% premium versus cryptocurrencies that offer utility and perspectives of growth.

It is worth noting that Shiba Inu (SHIB), another memecoin with no real utility, presently trades at a $8 billion market capitalization, hence one could easily argue that a token officially supported by the sitting US President is worth far more, paving the way for $30 or higher price targets for TRUMP.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.