Trump 2.0 era brings a flurry of crypto deals

With Trump back in the presidency, many bankers and advisers anticipate a boom in digital-asset deals

- Alexander Osipovich & Vicky Ge Huang

President Trump's embrace of digital currencies has unleashed a flurry of crypto deals, with companies seeking to capitalize on lighter U.S. regulation and what they hope will be growing mainstream interest in the sector.

This week brought the debut of Twenty One Capital, a new bitcoin company that plans to go public through a $3.6 billion merger with a special-purpose acquisition company led by Brandon Lutnick, son of Commerce Secretary and close Trump confidant Howard Lutnick.

With deep-pocketed backers such as Tether and Japan's SoftBank Group, Twenty One plans to amass billions of dollars of bitcoin and issue debt to acquire more—a highly speculative business model pioneered by software maker turned bitcoin investor MicroStrategy.

The Twenty One merger is the third crypto deal valued at more than $1 billion to be announced in less than two months. It comes as dealmaking more broadly has slowed down, because of market volatility sparked by Trump's tariffs and uncertainty over how aggressive the new administration will be on antitrust policy.

Earlier this month, Ripple agreed to acquire prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, betting that institutional investors will want to step up their exposure to crypto. And digital-currency exchange Kraken struck a $1.5 billion deal for futures broker NinjaTrader in March, one of the biggest tie-ups to date between trading platforms in crypto and traditional assets.