{"id":52237,"date":"2026-05-20T10:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/?p=52237"},"modified":"2026-05-20T10:18:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:18:38","slug":"tether-takes-control-of-twenty-one-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/news\/tether-takes-control-of-twenty-one-capital","title":{"rendered":"Tether Takes Control of Twenty One Capital After Buying Out SoftBank"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tether International has acquired SoftBank’s entire stake in Twenty One Capital, the Bitcoin treasury company co-founded by Jack Mallers,<\/a> consolidating control over one of the most prominent public Bitcoin vehicles to emerge in the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transaction, announced<\/a> May 20, removes the last major outside ownership bloc from Twenty One’s founding three-party structure. SoftBank’s representatives on the company’s board stepped down at closing, per the terms of XXI’s shareholder agreement. No financial details of the deal were disclosed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty One Capital launched in April 2025 through a business combination with Cantor Equity Partners, with the three founding sponsors \u2014 Tether, SoftBank, and Bitfinex \u2014 contributing Bitcoin in exchange for shares priced at $10 each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At inception, Tether was expected to contribute<\/a> roughly 24,000 BTC, SoftBank 10,500 BTC, and Bitfinex around 7,000 BTC. The company was built to debut with more than 42,000 BTC \u2014 enough to rank as the third-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury in the world at the time, with an implied enterprise value of $3.6 billion based on an 84-day average Bitcoin reference price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before its listing, Tether added a further 4,812 BTC worth approximately $458.7 million to Twenty One’s treasury, bringing its holdings to 36,312 BTC at that stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With SoftBank’s exit, Twenty One moves from a coalition-backed vehicle to what is, in practical terms, Tether’s public Bitcoin operating arm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift is structural: a company once held up by three institutional pillars now rests almost entirely on Tether’s balance sheet and strategic direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, acknowledged SoftBank’s role in shaping the company’s early formation but framed the buyout as the beginning of a new phase. “They leave behind a company with a stronger foundation, a clearer mandate, and an ambitious path ahead,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than a bitcoin treasury\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That path appears to extend well beyond Bitcoin treasury accumulation. In April, Tether proposed merging<\/a> Twenty One with Strike \u2014 Jack Mallers’ Bitcoin payments company \u2014 and Elektron Energy, a Bitcoin mining operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The combination would place a Bitcoin treasury, a payments and financial services layer, and mining infrastructure under one corporate umbrella, transforming Twenty One from a balance-sheet trade into an integrated Bitcoin holding company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty One has positioned itself as a direct counterpoint to Michael Saylor’s Strategy, adopting performance metrics like Bitcoin Per Share and Bitcoin Return Rate rather than conventional earnings benchmarks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tether has bought out SoftBank\u2019s stake in Twenty One Capital, giving it full control of the Jack Mallers-cofounded firm and positioning it as Tether\u2019s primary public Bitcoin vehicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3817,"featured_media":52239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4378],"tags":[2439,811,5538],"class_list":{"0":"post-52237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-softbank","9":"tag-tether","10":"tag-twenty-one-capital"},"author_data":{"id":3817,"name":"Micah Zimmerman","nicename":"micahzimmerman","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Micah_Zimmerman_Author_Image.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Tether-Takes-Control-of-Twenty-One-Capital-After-Buying-Out-SoftBank.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}