Cantor Equity Partners I (NASDAQ: CEPO), a special purpose acquisition company, has scrapped its planned merger with BSTR Holdings, citing the need to renegotiate terms to “better reflect current market conditions.”
The deal, first announced in July 2025, was designed to create one of the largest bitcoin treasury companies, known as DATCOs, listed on major U.S. exchanges.
BSTR had been expected to debut with more than 30,000 bitcoin on its balance sheet, positioning it among the world’s largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holders, as reported by iBusiness.News.
The transaction also included plans to raise up to $1.5 billion through a private investment in public equity arrangement, intended to provide additional capital for bitcoin acquisition.
The termination of the original agreement, confirmed on July 8, 2026, saw the $1.5 billion PIPE dropped entirely, with the shareholder vote postponed and no new timeline announced.
CEPO shares remain near $10.50, close to their trust value, reflecting the broader erosion of the mNAV premium that underpinned the original $4 billion deal structure.
All previously submitted redemption requests have been cancelled, and the related shares will be returned to investors while both parties attempt to negotiate a revised structure.
The collapse of this deal reflects a wider deterioration across the DATCO space, most visibly in the 75% decline over the past year in the share price of Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, which now plans to sell as much as $1.25 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR), backed by Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, has continued accumulating ether and is nearing holdings equivalent to 5% of the total coin supply, but its stock recently traded around $15, a steep drop from peaks above $161 during the DATCO boom of summer 2025.
Eightco (NASDAQ: ORBS) has experienced a similarly dramatic fall, with shares recently changing hands at 64 cents after reaching a high of more than $80 last September, despite holding roughly 8% of the world token supply and approximately $90 million in OpenAI on its balance sheet.
Prominent tech analyst Dan Ives, who joined Eightco as chairman in September, stepped down in March, with Tom Lee appointed to the board on the same day.
Twenty One Capital (NYSE: XXI), a bitcoin-related business that listed on the NYSE in December via a SPAC merger, has also fallen considerably from its peak valuations.
The crypto slang term “rekt,” used to describe total financial devastation, has become an apt description for many of these once-celebrated digital asset treasury vehicles.
Earlier this year, Adam Back told CoinDesk that launching during a weaker bitcoin market could ultimately benefit BSTR by allowing it to accumulate bitcoin at lower prices ahead of a potential recovery, offering a rare note of optimism amid the sector’s broader struggles.
