Jack Mallers Logs Off Twenty One as Tether's Three-Way Bitcoin Wedding Gets Cold Feet 💔

Jack Mallers has resigned as CEO of Twenty One Capital, ending Tether's plan to merge the Bitcoin treasury company with Strike and Elektron Energy into a single publicly traded entity, according to Bloomberg. Strike will continue operating as a standalone company rather than combining with Twenty One. Discussions between Twenty One and Elektron Energy remain ongoing, Bloomberg reported.

Twenty One's NYSE-listed shares fell nearly 15% on Tuesday. The company held 43,514 Bitcoin at the time of writing, making it the world's second-largest corporate BTC holder behind Michael Saylor's Strategy, according to tracking website BitcoinTreasuries. At current prices, that balance sheet is worth more than $4 billion.

Mallers co-founded Twenty One alongside Tether, the issuer of USDT, and listed the company on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2025 through a SPAC merger with backing from Tether, Cantor Fitzgerald and SoftBank. Tether bought SoftBank's stake in the company in May. Tether holds majority stakes in both Twenty One and Strike.

Tether first proposed the three-way combination in April 2026 at the Bitcoin Conference, with Mallers publicly endorsing the plan. The deal was billed as a move to create "the premier listed Bitcoin company in the world," combining mining, payments and treasury management under one stock. As Cointelegraph reported in April, Tether said it planned to vote in favor of the merger between Twenty One Capital and Mallers' Bitcoin payments company Strike.

Mallers is set to remain CEO of Strike, which operates in more than 100 countries. On X, he wrote: "I've decided to step down as CEO of Twenty One. This wasn't an easy decision, but it was the right one. This experience brought tremendous clarity about who I am and what I want to build. My life's work remains Bitcoin. My Bitcoin company is Strike. The work continues."

Elektron Energy founder Raphael Zagury has been named Twenty One's new CEO. Zagury previously served as a managing director at Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch and as a vice president at Goldman Sachs. As Cointelegraph reported, Twenty One held 43,514 Bitcoin at the time of writing.