Jack Mallers Steps Down as Twenty One CEO, Strike Deal Ends

Jack Mallers Leaves Twenty One as Raphael Zagury Takes Over

The company said the appointment and departure were effective July 20. Zagury had served as an independent director and interim audit-committee chair, as well as on the compensation and nominating committees. He resigned from those committees July 15 but remains a director while serving as CEO.

Mallers will work with Zagury on an orderly transition, according to the release. The company did not identify an interim period, a new executive position for Mallers at Twenty One, or a separate payout or employment arrangement in the announcement.

Zagury brings a different operating background. Twenty One said he founded and leads the team managing Elektron, and previously held roles at Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. His appointment places the leader of a company potentially involved in a future related-party transaction at the top of the prospective acquirer.

That does not mean a deal has been agreed. Twenty One said any Elektron acquisition would be subject to its related-person transaction policy and applicable Texas corporate-law provisions. It also said there is no assurance that a deal will be signed, approved or completed.

The company has framed the change as a move toward corporate structure, governance and capital allocation, rather than a change to its basic Bitcoin focus. Its release says the operating-business strategy is intended to use the balance sheet while preserving disciplined allocation at the parent company.

The distinction is important because a Bitcoin treasury is not the same as a business with recurring cash flow. A stockpile can create market exposure, but operating businesses and lending activities bring execution, credit and regulatory risks that a passive holding model does not carry in the same way.

Twenty One’s 43,514 BTC Treasury Faces a New Operating Test

Twenty One’s latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission reported 43,514 BTC as of March 31, with a fair value of $2.95 billion and a cost basis of $3.69 billion. The reported balance declined by one Bitcoin from Dec. 31, after a disposal the filing valued at $90,495.

The same filing illustrates the concentration risk Zagury inherits. Twenty One recorded an $847.8 million change in the fair value of digital assets in the first quarter, as Bitcoin’s reporting-date price fell to $67,832 from $87,316 at the end of 2025. The figure was an accounting movement, not a disclosed sale of the full stack.

About 16,116 BTC were pledged as collateral for convertible notes at March 31, the company said. It warned that those coins cannot serve as a source of liquidity, and listed $114.1 million of cash at the quarter’s end. That means the headline BTC balance does not translate directly into freely deployable cash.

This is a different balance-sheet posture from the cash-buffer approach disclosed in Strategy’s latest reserve update, which reported a $3.225 billion USD reserve alongside unchanged Bitcoin holdings. Both companies retain large BTC exposure, but their reported near-term liquidity structures are not the same.

Twenty One said its new priorities include capital-markets capabilities and, over time, Bitcoin-backed financial products supported by durable operating cash flows. The announcement did not give a product launch date, a lending partner, a target loan book or a revenue forecast.

That leaves an important separation between the plan and the delivered operation. Inference from the new priorities is limited: building fee or interest income could diversify the company beyond BTC price exposure, but the release does not show how much capital will be committed, what underwriting standards will apply or when results could be measured.

Strike Stays Separate as Elektron Talks Continue

The most definite transaction outcome is Strike’s status. Twenty One said the payments company will remain standalone and is no longer being considered for a business combination. Mallers said in the release that Strike is where he will carry forward his mission of serving Bitcoin users.

The original potential platform was broader. It contemplated financial services, mining infrastructure, capital markets and treasury under one roof. Removing Strike narrows that combination and returns Mallers’ payments operation to a separate corporate path, while Twenty One examines its own operating strategy.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, a Twenty One board member, thanked Mallers for guiding the company through its business combination and December 2025 NYSE listing. Tether remains relevant to the firm’s history and Bitcoin-treasury landscape, which Daily Crypto Briefs has tracked through its profit-funded BTC allocation policy, but the new release did not disclose a change in Tether’s role or ownership.

The leadership change also arrives amid fragile broad-market sentiment. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index read 25, or Extreme Fear, on July 21, after 29 a day earlier. The indicator is a general Bitcoin sentiment measure, not an assessment of XXI shares or the likelihood of an Elektron transaction.

The next formal signals are an SEC filing on the executive transition, any detail on the Elektron review and Twenty One’s next financial report. Until then, the confirmed facts are a new CEO, a standalone Strike and an expanded operating agenda for a company still anchored by 43,514 BTC.