Jack Mallers is helming a trendy new crypto company, Twenty One. The newly announced MicroStrategy competitor, controlled by stablecoin giant Tether and its sister crypto exchange Bitfinex, plans to tap capital markets to leverage billions of dollars worth of bitcoin (BTC).
Tether/Bitfinex has decided that a former marijuana industry entrepreneur-turned-Tether app operator would be the perfect CEO to take on Michael Saylor.
Mallers cultivated a BTC-only brand for years — even while using altcoins like tether (USDT) for core business operations. This month, he’s continued to boast about his BTC-only ethos on national TV appearances promoting his new venture.
As CEO of Twenty One, he will somehow use bond offerings, new software, and various financial services to grow the company’s BTC on an accretive basis over time.
In repeated press appearances this week, Mallers has emphasized that owners of stock in Cantor Equity Partners (CEP), which will eventually change its ticker symbol to XXI, can expect him to add debt but make shareholders wealthier in BTC terms.
Accretive dilution is the same forward projection used by MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor. Over time, Saylor advertises a BTC yield, a growing ratio between the firm’s Assumed Diluted Shares Outstanding and its BTC holdings.
Mallers wants to accrue BTC for XXI shareholders with even better performance. Hopefully, he’ll sell Twenty One corporate debt on even more accretive terms than Saylor.
Read more: Michael Saylor suggests selling kidneys as bitcoin dips below $80K
Dual CEO of Strike and Twenty One
Initially, Mallers will continue running Strike, his BTC-focused payments app that used USDT during its startup period. Indeed, he’s explicitly stated his intention to serve as dual CEO of Strike and Twenty One.
For context, the publicly-traded CEP, which might own 2.7% of the combined equity in XXI, closed for trading Thursday at a $255 million market cap. That imputes a value of $9.4 billion for Twenty One.
The market cap of MSTR, Twenty One’s competitor, closed 10X larger at $94 billion.
In September 2021, Protos reviewed Mallers’ early career. Given his prominence as CEO of the multi-billion-dollar Twenty One, it’s worth also looking back at the subsequent years of his career.
What has Jack Mallers been up to recently?
Over the past few years at Strike, Mallers enabled BTC remittances to new countries, Twitter tips, and peer-to-peer payment services in Argentina.
Meanwhile, at the Bitcoin 2022 conference, he announced Strike’s integration with Shopify, NCR’s point-of-sale terminals, and prepaid payment service provider Blackhawk Network. He promised that everyday consumers would be able to use Strike to buy McDonald’s or Wendy’s using BTC — which never happened.
In August 2022, Mallers announced a Strike-branded Visa card, and by December 2022, it began its expansion into Africa by launching the Send Globally feature. This initially enabled Strike users in the US to send money to Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria.
By May 2023, its services were available in 65 countries.
More recently, Strike launched a new customer service feature, Callback Phone Support, which enabled users to request a phone call from a customer service representative. (Crypto exchanges are typically limited to internet-based support only.)
Last year, Strike reported $6 billion in volume and gross profit margins of 85% on its transaction fees in 2024. It forecasted eight to nine-figure net profits in 2025, with a team of approximately 75 full-time employees.
Mallers continues his Tether-supported career
Mallers has worked with Tether for years and became closely involved in El Salvador’s BTC-related efforts. From a major conference stage, Mallers announced President Nayib Bukele’s plan to make BTC legal tender in 2021. This pledge has now been rescinded.
He also moved Strike’s headquarters to El Salvador in 2023. Tether also has its global headquarters in El Salvador.
Mallers has recently returned to the US for events like the recent Bitcoin for America conference, where he gave a keynote address about a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. He referred to BTC as “a return to traditional values.”
Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve on March 6, 2025.