In brief
- Brandon Lutnick’s 21 Capital will receive $3 billion pooled from SoftBank, Tether, and Bitfinex
- The vehicle wants to follow MicroStrategy’s success as a public Bitcoin-focused company
- Partners will convert Bitcoin contributions to shares at a $85,000 per coin valuation.
Brandon Lutnick, son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, is creating a multibillion-dollar Bitcoin acquisition vehicle in partnership with SoftBank, Tether, and Bitfinex, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.
The new venture, called 21 Capital, will receive $3 billion in Bitcoin from its partners—$1.5 billion from Tether, $900 million from SoftBank, and $600 million from Bitfinex, according to three people briefed on the matter, as cited by the Financial Times.
Decrypt has reached out to Tether, SoftBank, Bitfinex, and Cantor Fitzgerald on the matter, but did not receive an immediate response.
While the deal is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, it may not materialize and the figures remain subject to change, per the report.
The venture will operate through Cantor Equity Partners, a special-purpose acquisition company that raised $200 million in January of this year, which will serve as the launchpad for 21 Capital.
Cantor’s forays into crypto follow key moves it has made over the past year.
In November last year, plans for a separate $2 billion Bitcoin lending program to be launched by Cantor Fitzgerald with Tether emerged. By March this year, Cantor announced it would make use of crypto platforms maintained by Anchorage Digital and Copper.
The moves also coincide with President Trump’s appointment of Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary last year, who worked at Cantor for over four decades.
The consortium aims to create a publicly listed alternative to MicroStrategy, which has surged to a $91 billion market capitalization after pivoting to Bitcoin investing.
Partners working with Cantor are scheduled to convert their Bitcoin investments into 21 Capital shares, priced at $10 per share, bringing the price per Bitcoin valuation to $85,000 per coin.
The deal comes amid the Trump administration’s more accommodative stance toward cryptocurrency trading.
Bitcoin’s price peaked at around $106,000 earlier this year, following Trump’s election victory. While it had fallen to $79,000, the asset has since recovered to $93,100 at the time of writing.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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