A new player is entering the institutional Bitcoin space.
Cantor Fitzgerald, along with digital asset giants Tether, Bitfinex and global investor SoftBank is launching 21 Capital, a new Bitcoin-focused investment vehicle.
The firm will hold billions in bitcoin and hopes to offer a more structured and diversified alternative to Strategy’s aggressive bitcoin acquisition program.
The venture will receive $3 billion in bitcoin from its founding partners:
$1.5 billion from stablecoin issuer Tether
$900 million from tech investment giant SoftBank
$600 million from the Bitfinex exchange
All of this bitcoin will be converted into shares of 21 Capital at a fixed rate of $85,000 per bitcoin, with each share priced at $10. This gives the company a unique structure — part bitcoin fund, part public company.
21 Capital will also raise $350 million through a convertible bond and $200 million via a private equity round.
Leading the charge is Brandon Lutnick, the new chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald and son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Brandon is positioning 21 Capital to be a major institutional gateway for bitcoin investing — a step beyond just holding BTC.
Jack Mallers, CEO of Bitcoin payments app Strike and co-founder and CEO of 21 Capital said:
“We’re not here to beat the market, we’re here to build a new one — a public stock, built by Bitcoiners, for Bitcoiners.”
The plan is similar to Strategy’s playbook — using equity and debt to buy bitcoin — but with more backers, more upfront capital and a clear focus on risk diversification.
As one analyst from Alva put it: “Unlike MicroStrategy’s lone-wolf HODL, this is a coordinated, risk-diversified push.”
The vehicle is being launched through Cantor Equity Partners, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that raised $200 million earlier this year.
Once the deal is done, 21 Capital will list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “XXI”.
Cantor Fitzgerald has been getting more active in digital assets, previously advising Tether on its $775 million investment in video-sharing platform Rumble and planning a $2 billion bitcoin lending program.
SoftBank’s involvement is interesting. Founder Masayoshi Son lost over $130 million on a mistimed bitcoin investment in 2017 and it seems he’s doubling down in a more calculated way.
“It seems to me that Masa’s looking to build a Bitcoin-AI-energy flywheel: Stargate for infra. Cipher for compute + BTC mining. 21 Capital to monetize the bitcoin,” said Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck.
SoftBank also invested $50 million in Cipher Mining recently to support the infrastructure for future Bitcoin operations.
To be more transparent, 21 Capital will use two new metrics; Bitcoin Per Share (BPS), which shows how much BTC each share represents, and Bitcoin Return Rate (BRR) which tracks BPS over time.
The company wants to give investors a direct, tradable proxy for bitcoin—one that’s structured and regulated like a traditional financial product, but anchored in the Bitcoin world.
At launch, 21 Capital will hold over 42,000 BTC, second only to Strategy (538,200 BTC) and MARA Holdings (47,531 BTC) in terms of corporate bitcoin reserves.
