Tether Investments, a separate and independent financial arm of the USDT stablecoin issuer, has put forth transactions to merge three companies into one public company. The proposed three-way Bitcoin merger involves Twenty-One Capital (XXI), Strike, and Elektron Energy. Tether will be voting its majority share in XXI for approval and creating a single public company to provide a comprehensive solution for everything from accumulating Bitcoin treasury values through mining, providing financial services, and accessing global capital markets.
What the Bitcoin merger entails
The proposed merger entails Strike contributing its profitable financial services platform for individuals and businesses to buy, sell, hodl, transact, and borrow against Bitcoin while providing global distribution and regulatory compliance across more than 100 countries. The merger with Elektron Energy will provide large-scale Bitcoin mining ability through the management of approximately 50 exahashes per second (EH/s), about 5% of the Bitcoin network, at an average production cost of less than USD 60,000 per coin and more than 5,500 BTC produced across its portfolio.
The merger will take XXI beyond being an investor in only a Bitcoin treasury [currently holding 43,514 BTC at Initial Public Offering (IPO)] to a diversified operating business with recurring revenue opportunities and the ability to build Bitcoin reserves long-term. Tether proposed that Raphael Zagury, the founder of Elektron, serve as the new President of the combined companies and work alongside Jack Mallers, CEO at Strike, pairing their capital markets and Bitcoin mining experience with Jack’s expertise in product and technology development.
Strategic direction
As Tether writes that this is their way of creating “the premier listed Bitcoin company in the world,” by combining the treasury strength of XXI, the financial services and branding of Strike, and the mining efficiencies of Elektron. They did not provide any details or timelines for the merger deal; however, the result in the market has seen XXI’s stock price jump close to over six (6) percent after the news broke.
XXI Capital stock closed at USD 7,97, reaching a peak of USD 8,50 after hours, and trading at USD 7,83 at the time of writing. If this goes well, this could be one of the most important crypto-related enterprises to date.