Bitcoin Standard Treasury to Go Public With Cantor Fitzgerald-Affiliated SPAC

Bitcoin Standard Treasury Co. (BSTR) plans to go public through a business combination with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Cantor Equity Partners I (CEPO), which is sponsored by an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald.

BSTR will launch with 30,021 bitcoin on its balance sheet, which would make it the fourth-largest public bitcoin treasury, the company said in a Thursday (July 17) press release. It will also have up to $1.5 billion of private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing

The business combination was unanimously approved by both companies’ board of directors and, subject to CEPO shareholder approval and other customary closing conditions, the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter, according to the release.

BSTR will use the net proceeds to acquire more bitcoin and to build bitcoin-native capital-markets products and advisory services, the release said.

The company will be led by CEO Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash and co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, and Chief Investment Officer Sean Bill, a FinTech and hedge fund investor, per the release.

“Bitcoin was created as sound money and BSTR is being created to bring that same integrity to modern capital markets,” Back said in the release. He added that the company’s mission is “maximizing bitcoin ownership per share while accelerating real-world bitcoin adoption.”

Brandon Lutnick, chairman and CEO of CEPO and chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, said in the release: “This historic transaction marks another step towards the integration of the bitcoin economy and traditional finance.”

It was reported in June that many public companies have turned to bitcoin treasury strategies, which involve setting aside some of their cash and reserves toward the cryptocurrency, to imitate the success of software company Strategy.

In another recent development in this space, investor Anthony Pompliano said June 23 that he launched a bitcoin treasury whose balance sheet would hold $1 billion of that cryptocurrency.

Pompliano’s ProCap BTC, a bitcoin-native financial services firm, announced plans to enter a SPAC merger with Columbus Circle Capital Corp. to create ProCap Financial.

It was reported in April that Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether Holdings SA and SoftBank Group formed a new company called Twenty One Capital that was set to launch with over 42,000 bitcoin, positioning it as the third-largest corporate bitcoin holder globally.