Twenty One Capital, the Bitcoin treasury company led by Jack Mallers, has climbed to the position of second-largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury by holdings. The shift follows a significant sell-off by crypto miner MARA, which offloaded 15,133 BTC throughout March 2026, pushing it down to third place. Twenty One Capital now holds 43,514 BTC in its corporate treasury, a position valued at over $2.9 billion based on current market prices, according to data from BitcoinTreasuries.
Twenty One Capital entered public markets late last year through a business combination with Cantor Equity Partners, a special purpose acquisition company. The firm now trades on the NYSE under the ticker XXI. Despite its elevated ranking among Bitcoin treasury holders, its shares have declined more than 25% since the start of the year. The next largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder is Japanese treasury company Metaplanet, which holds 35,100 BTC.
MARA’s decision to sell approximately $1.1 billion worth of Bitcoin has drawn attention from analysts tracking the sector. BitcoinTreasuries analyst Tyler Rowe noted in a Thursday report that this approach stands in sharp contrast to the model championed by Strategy, which treats Bitcoin as perpetual digital credit and uses it as collateral to continuously finance further acquisitions. Rowe questioned whether miners could sustainably operate as Bitcoin treasury companies without the capital markets infrastructure that Strategy’s leadership spent years constructing.
Some observers interpret MARA’s sell-off as a sign of broader stress across crypto treasury and mining companies. A challenging business environment has been compounded by a crypto bear market that began in October 2025, along with declining share prices across the sector. These conditions have raised questions about the long-term viability of companies that rely on Bitcoin holdings as a core part of their financial strategy.
Concerns about the sustainability of crypto treasury models are not new. In June 2025, venture capital firm Breed warned that only a small number of such companies would survive what it described as a potential death spiral caused by contracting market net asset values. Breed argued that firms trading at or below their net asset value would eventually be forced to liquidate Bitcoin holdings to service debt obligations as access to affordable financing dried up.
Deng Chao, CEO of asset manager HashKey Capital, told Cointelegraph that companies treating their crypto holdings as a short-term speculative position rather than a long-term strategic asset are more likely to capitulate between market cycles. He added that treasury companies maintaining a disciplined, long-term approach would be better positioned to endure multiple cycles. The diverging fortunes of firms like Twenty One Capital and MARA illustrate how different treasury strategies are playing out under current market conditions.
Originally reported by CoinTelegraph.
