Jack Mallers leaves Twenty One as Tether’s three-way Bitcoin deal ends

Jack Mallers has stepped down as chief executive of Twenty One Capital, a Bitcoin treasury company whose stock gives public-market investors exposure to Bitcoin through a corporate balance sheet. The move matters for retail investors because it lands alongside the collapse of a planned Tether-backed merger that would have combined Bitcoin holdings, payments and mining under one listed company.

Twenty One shares, which trade under the ticker XXI, fell by double digits Tuesday after the news. Bloomberg reported that the stock dropped nearly 18%, extending a slide of more than 80% from last year’s highs.

Mallers said on X that leaving Twenty One “wasn’t an easy decision,” but called it “the right one.” He added that his work remains focused on Bitcoin and that his Bitcoin company is Strike, the payments firm he founded.

The abandoned Tether plan

Bloomberg reported that Tether’s proposed three-way deal to merge Twenty One, Strike and Elektron Energy is no longer moving ahead. The plan would have put Twenty One’s Bitcoin treasury business, Strike’s payments and lending platform, and Elektron’s mining infrastructure inside one publicly traded company.

A Bitcoin treasury company holds Bitcoin as a core asset on its balance sheet. For shareholders, that can make the stock partly behave like a proxy for Bitcoin, though it also carries company-specific risks such as management changes, financing choices and execution.

Tether, the issuer of USDT, co-founded Twenty One with Mallers. USDT is a dollar-pegged stablecoin, meaning it is designed to trade around $1 and is widely used in crypto markets for trading and transfers.

The original combination was introduced in April 2026 at the Bitcoin Conference, according to Bloomberg and prior reporting cited by Decrypt. Mallers had been expected to lead the combined company, while Elektron Energy founder Raphael Zagury was expected to become president.

That structure has now been dropped. Strike will stay independent, according to Bloomberg. Twenty One and Elektron Energy are still in early talks about a possible two-company transaction, but no final agreement has been announced.

What remains at Twenty One

Twenty One became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2025 through a SPAC merger. A SPAC, short for special purpose acquisition company, is a shell company that raises money first and then merges with an operating business to take it public.

Twenty One still holds 43,514 Bitcoin, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net. At current market prices, that stash is worth more than $4 billion.

That makes Twenty One the second-largest public-company holder of Bitcoin, behind Strategy, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net. Strategy, led by Michael Saylor, helped popularize the corporate Bitcoin treasury model after it began accumulating Bitcoin in 2020.

The end of the Tether-backed merger plan leaves investors with a narrower company than the one originally pitched: Twenty One remains a major Bitcoin holder, Strike remains separate, and any future tie-up with Elektron Energy is still uncertain.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.