Twenty One Capital Buys $458.7M Bitcoin, Becomes Third-Largest Corporate Holder

Twenty One Capital, a Bitcoin investment firm, has recently made a significant move in the cryptocurrency market. The firm, backed by Tether, Bitfinex, SoftBank, and Cantor Fitzgerald, acquired $458.7 million worth of Bitcoin on behalf of Twenty One Capital. This purchase, disclosed in a May 13 filing by Cantor Equity Partners with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, involved the acquisition of 4,812.2 BTC at an average price of $95,319 per coin. The Bitcoin was transferred into an escrow wallet on May 9, bringing Twenty One’s total Bitcoin holdings to 36,312 BTC, making it the third-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin. This places it behind only Strategy, with 568,840 BTC, and Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings with 48,237 BTC.

Jack Mallers, the CEO of Twenty One and also the head of Strike, confirmed that the company is currently undergoing the merger approval process but did not specify a timeline for its completion. Tether is a majority stakeholder in Twenty One alongside crypto exchange Bitfinex, while Cantor Fitzgerald, a major Wall Street player, is sponsoring the SPAC deal and secured $585 million in funding to support the firm’s Bitcoin acquisition strategy. Additionally, Japanese investment giant SoftBank contributed $900 million to Twenty One, to help boost the firm’s ambitions. In filings that were made in April, Twenty One described its goal to outpace Michael Saylor’s Strategy as the top vehicle for investors seeking capital-efficient Bitcoin exposure. Unlike traditional companies that focus on earnings per share, Twenty One’s key performance metric will be “Bitcoin per share.”

The company plans to reach 42,000 BTC by launch, with contributions including 23,950 BTC from Tether, 10,500 BTC from SoftBank, and around 7,000 BTC from Bitfinex, which will be converted to equity at $10 per share. After the Bitcoin purchase, Cantor Equity Partners’ share price rose by 5.2% in after-hours trading, although it retreated from its May 2 peak of $59.73 to around $29.84.

Despite growing institutional interest, Bitcoin’s price remains range-bound near $104,000. Market analysts pointed out that Bitcoin hovered near key liquidity zones, suggesting a temporary pause in directional momentum. Data from CoinGlass revealed that both upward and downward liquidity clusters were cleared, which prompted trader Daan Crypto Trades to comment that the market was now in a range-bound state with no massive liquidity levels in play. The day before, he predicted a drop to around $102,000, which played out as expected. Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe added that Bitcoin stalling at current levels is not alarming and explained that a pullback to $97,500–$98,000 will still maintain the broader uptrend toward new all-time highs. Meanwhile, QCP Capital suggested that Bitcoin remains caught between its role as digital gold and as a risk-on asset, which created a lack of clear direction in the short term. They believe the evolving macro environment, shifting from protectionist policies to global trade optimism, could keep BTC trading sideways for now.

Despite the immediate price weakness, some voices in the space are still very bullish. Binance CEO Richard Teng pointed to Bitcoin’s strong performance relative to traditional assets, and said that it outpaced gold, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq since April 2. He also called Bitcoin’s momentum “undeniable.”