Twenty One Capital’s highly anticipated debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was immediately met with a harsh market reality check on its first day. Twenty One Capital trades under the ticker XXI and is a Bitcoin-native company backed by power players like Tether, Bitfinex, and SoftBank.
Shares of the crypto treasury company collapsed by nearly 20% on December 9, following the completion of its SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners.
CEO Jack Mallers about Twenty One Capital
Although CEO Jack Mallers has publicly pushed for the company to build beyond Bitcoin accumulation and focus on “utility services” and an enterprise architecture for new financial products, investors may not be convinced.
The massive drop, which saw the stock open at $10.74 and close at $11.42, suggested Wall Street is doing more than just pricing in the broader push on crypto-related stocks.
CEO Maller commented in an interview:
“Yes, we own a lot of bitcoin. Yes, we’re going to acquire as much as we can, but we’re also about to launch a bunch of business lines and generate profits associated with bitcoin, and that’s a big part of why we founded the company in the first place.”
What impact did it have?
Needless to say, the aforementioned decline indicated a stunning and much-discussed valuation paradox.
According to According to Reuters calculations, the company’s main asset is a huge Bitcoin [BTC] treasury, is worth more than $3.97 billion alone, based on Bitcoin’s closing price of $91,350.
The fact that the new public shares are trading at a significant discount to the underlying Bitcoin holdings underlines Wall Street’s ultra-cautious position on crypto-linked vehicles.
This skepticism has been exacerbated by the structure of the deal: a merger with Cantor Equity Partners (CEP), a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) backed by institutional powerhouse Cantor Fitzgerald and led by Brandon Lutnick.
While CEP’s shares had soared a dramatic 380% earlier in April on the prospect of the merger, the market’s ultimate reaction was blunt commentary.
It also underlines the recent track record of high-profile crypto SPACs that debuted during a period when Bitcoin has fallen more than 28% from its October high of $126,223.
More and more difficult for DATs…
Twenty One Capital’s troubled debut comes as the entire Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) sector faces intense scrutiny.
Market observers are now turning renewed attention to the ‘mNAV’ metric, a company’s enterprise value relative to its raw crypto holdings, amid cryptocurrency’s broader decline.
According to Johannes TodaroSenior Research Analyst at Needham,
“It is becoming increasingly difficult for DATs to raise capital and we are now in an environment where DATs must demonstrate material differentiation to secure the mNAV multiples they were previously trading at in 2025,”
Twenty One Capital’s debut, a highly anticipated event following its high-profile SPAC merger, serves as the latest clear indicator that the market’s honeymoon with the leveraged “Bitcoin Treasury” model may be officially over.
However, Twenty One’s struggle is not an isolated one.
How are other Bitcoin companies doing?
Both Metaplanet in Japan and Strategy itself are facing a silent reckoning, driven by the punishing calculus of the market-to-NAV (mNAV) ratio.
Metaplanet’s abrupt pause on Bitcoin purchases, despite deep price declines, and its insane $500 million line of credit for stock buybacks demonstrate the near-crippling effect that an mNAV of less than 1x has on a company’s ability to finance new growth.
Similarly, Strategy’s rapid $1.44 billion capital raise, aimed at calming the FUD and reinforcing its ‘never sell’ philosophy, underlines the intense liquidity stress caused by market volatility.
Final thoughts
- Twenty One Capital’s rocky NYSE debut heralds a major shift in market sentiment.
- The company’s steep discount to its own Bitcoin holdings highlights a growing divide between crypto assets and stock market confidence.