Jack Mallers and Twenty One: Building a Bitcoin Treasury for the Future

At just 31 years old, Jack Mallers has already reshaped conversations around digital money. The entrepreneur’s track record speaks for itself—from launching Strike, a payment platform that brought Bitcoin closer to mainstream adoption, to playing a pivotal role in El Salvador becoming the first nation to embrace Bitcoin as legal tender. Now, Mallers is turning his attention to yet another chapter: establishing Twenty One, a Bitcoin treasury company designed to compete alongside the most prominent players in the space.

From Strike to Twenty One: Jack Mallers’ Bitcoin Journey

Jack Mallers didn’t stumble into the cryptocurrency world by accident. His path began when his father, a futures trader, illuminated how monetary systems actually function. That conversation planted seeds about the dangers of currency debasement through government printing and inflation—a realization that continues to fuel his work today. Strike represented one manifestation of this vision: a vehicle for democratizing access to Bitcoin and traditional finance. The platform demonstrated that Bitcoin could serve practical, everyday purposes beyond speculation.

Twenty One emerges from a similar conviction. Rather than waiting for established financial institutions to build credible Bitcoin treasury infrastructure, Mallers decided to take the initiative himself. The company aims to position itself as a counterweight to existing major Bitcoin holders, bringing institutional-grade sophistication to how Bitcoin is accumulated and managed at scale.

A Friendship That Sparked Twenty One

The genesis of Twenty One reads like a friendship story accelerated by opportunity. Jack Mallers and Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, had already collaborated on several initiatives spanning open-source Bitcoin development, financial infrastructure projects, and efforts to advance El Salvador’s adoption of cryptocurrency. Their alignment on larger philosophical goals created natural common ground. It was through informal conversations—specifically via Telegram group discussions with Tether executives—that the idea crystallized: why shouldn’t there be a premium, credible Bitcoin treasury company backed by serious capital?

“If no one is going to build it, why not us?” became the rallying cry. Within weeks of committing to the idea, the concept had solidified into a concrete venture. What distinguished Twenty One from conception was its founding principle: a Bitcoin-native treasury company for the modern era, one that thinks in Bitcoin rather than dollars.

Why SoftBank Bet Billions on Bitcoin

The real validation arrived when SoftBank agreed to join as a launch partner—with a commitment to invest $1 billion. But this was no ordinary capital infusion. When Mallers’ team explained that Twenty One would be a Bitcoin company, they extended a radical invitation: contribute your billion dollars not in fiat currency, but in Bitcoin itself.

At the time, $1 billion converted to approximately 10,500 Bitcoin. SoftBank accepted. The decision demonstrated something profound: even one of the world’s largest investment firms recognized that Bitcoin, not the U.S. dollar, was the appropriate unit of account for this particular investment.

Twenty One launched with a minimum of 2,000 Bitcoin in treasury holdings, positioning it as the third-largest Bitcoin holder globally. The achievement underscores how rapidly institutional attitudes toward Bitcoin have shifted. What seemed speculative a decade ago now appears as disciplined capital allocation.

Bitcoin as Moral Code: The Philosophy Behind the Company

Strip away the business mechanics of Twenty One, and you’ll find a deeper philosophical foundation. For Jack Mallers, Bitcoin transcends its technical architecture, its market value, or its financial instruments like ETFs. Instead, he frames it as a moral operating system—a set of ethical principles encoded into mathematics.

In Mallers’ articulation, Bitcoin represents four core commitments: “You shall not censor. You shall not inflate. You shall not confiscate. You shall not counterfeit.” These aren’t merely technical features; they’re declarations about how human society should function. By removing political control over money’s issuance, Bitcoin creates conditions where individuals can participate in markets and store value without fear of arbitrary government intervention.

This framing explains Twenty One’s deeper purpose. It’s not simply another hedge fund or financial vehicle seeking Bitcoin exposure. Instead, Mallers envisions it as infrastructure supporting an ethical alternative to traditional monetary systems—a place where moral principles about sound money become institutional reality. The company represents an attempt to embed these Bitcoin values into mainstream capital markets, transforming cryptocurrency from a retail phenomenon into a foundational layer of institutional finance.

For Jack Mallers, Twenty One is the latest iteration of a consistent mission: using Bitcoin and its underlying principles to reshape how the world thinks about money, sovereignty, and freedom.