Jack Mallers resigned as CEO and director of Twenty One Capital, Inc. (NYSE: XXI), effective July 20, 2026, according to a filing with the SEC. The board appointed Raphael Zagury, 50, as CEO effective the same day.
Key Takeaways
- Twenty One Capital’s board accepted Jack Mallers’ resignation as CEO and director, effective July 20, 2026, and disclosed the move in an SEC filing the next day.
- The board named Raphael Zagury, a former Swan Bitcoin investment chief, as CEO with a $600,000 base salary and a bonus of up to $700,000.
- Twenty One Capital confirmed that Strike, the payments firm Mallers is returning to lead, will stay standalone and is no longer being considered for a combination.
- Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, a Twenty One Capital board member, thanked Mallers for founding the company and guiding its December 2025 listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
- The SEC filing states Mallers’ exit “is not related to any disagreements with the Company” over its operations, disclosures, or accounting.
What Happened?
Mallers left the CEO role at Twenty One Capital, the company he founded. The Form 8-K said his departure was not tied to any dispute over the company’s operations or finances. Mallers echoed the split himself: I’ve decided to step down as CEO of Twenty One, he wrote on his verified X account, adding that his “life’s work remains Bitcoin” and Strike is his Bitcoin company now.
Under his separation agreement, Mallers will retain a $1,151,046.48 cash payment for the repurchase of previously delivered shares, plus vested stock options and restricted stock tied to his 2025 compensation. Unvested awards are forfeited. Zagury, who has sat on Twenty One’s board since December 2025 and previously served as Chief Investment Officer at Swan Bitcoin, with prior stints at Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank, stepped off the board’s audit, compensation, and governance committees to take the executive seat.
I’ve decided to step down as CEO of Twenty One.
— Jack Mallers (@jackmallers) July 21, 2026
This wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one. This experience brought tremendous clarity about who I am and what I want to build.
My life’s work remains Bitcoin. My Bitcoin company is @Strike.
The work continues. pic.twitter.com/L70YFYPt11
A Treasury Company Resets Its Priorities
The companion press release reframes what Twenty One Capital is for. Under Zagury, the firm now measures itself on cash flow and disciplined capital allocation, “not only by the Bitcoin we hold.”
Raphael Zagury, Chief Executive Officer of Twenty One Capital said:
That marks a shift from the accumulation first mandate Mallers set at launch.
The board set five refreshed strategic priorities, including new mandates for operating businesses and Bitcoin native lending and credit. One priority builds a long-term ownership model “inspired by Berkshire Hathaway,” built on long-term-duration capital and disciplined reinvestment, instead of fast trading gains.
The 8-K’s disclaimer and the press release’s overhaul of strategic priorities can both be true at once: a CEO can leave without a personal dispute while the company he built still changes direction underneath him.
Strike Stays Independent, Elektron Still Under Review
Twenty One had been weighing a three-way combination of itself, Strike, and Elektron Energy since an April 29, 2026 announcement. That plan is now split in two, and only one half of it is settled.
Strike is no longer being considered for a business combination with Twenty One. Mallers said in the release that Strike is where I carry it forward. The proposed Elektron Energy combination remains under evaluation, at a preliminary stage with no signed agreement.
That leaves Zagury on both sides of an unresolved deal. He is CEO of Elektron Enterprises LLC, the firm managing Elektron Energy operations, the same asset Twenty One is still weighing whether to acquire. The company confirmed any Elektron transaction would count as a related person transaction requiring review under Twenty One’s own policy and the Texas Business Organizations Code.
CoinLaw’s Takeaway
This reads as a sequencing problem for Twenty One Capital more than a boardroom coup. The company spent its first year building around Mallers’ conviction that owning Bitcoin was the whole strategy. It now needs an operator who can turn one of the largest Bitcoin balance sheets in the public markets into cash flow, not just a bigger number on a balance sheet.
Zagury’s résumé pairs a Wall Street trading background with hands-on Bitcoin mining management at Elektron, a better fit for that operating mandate than a payments founder whose real passion project was always Strike. Dropping the Strike deal removes the awkwardness of folding the CEO’s old company into the one he just left.
The unresolved Elektron question is the part worth watching. Zagury now runs the company deciding whether to buy the business he separately manages, and Twenty One has flagged that as a related person transaction subject to formal review under Texas law. For individual investors tracking public Bitcoin treasury vehicles, that governance test, not the CEO swap itself, is the detail that determines whether this transition strengthens the company’s institutional credibility or just moves the same concentration risk to a new deal.
