Cantor Fitzgerald-backed SPAC and Adam Back’s Bitcoin firm scrap original merger terms, start fresh negotiations
The proposed $4 billion deal between Cantor Equity Partners and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company hit enough turbulence to force both sides back to the drawing board.
One of the most ambitious Bitcoin treasury mergers ever attempted just hit the reset button. Cantor Equity Partners (CEPO), the SPAC backed by Cantor Fitzgerald, and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (BSTR), led by Blockstream co-founder Adam Back, have abandoned their original merger agreement and will negotiate entirely new terms.
The announcement landed on July 8, 2026, roughly a year after the two companies first struck their deal.
What went wrong with the original deal
The original agreement, announced on July 17, 2025, was a blockbuster. BSTR planned to merge with CEPO in a transaction valued at approximately $4 billion, with the Bitcoin firm contributing roughly 30,021 BTC, worth over $3 billion at the time of announcement.
On top of that, the deal included a PIPE financing component of up to $1.5 billion. That made it the largest financing ever tied to a Bitcoin treasury SPAC merger.
Shareholder votes on the merger were delayed not once, not twice, but at least three times, with postponements on June 26, July 2, and July 10, 2026. Bitcoin’s price volatility means that a deal structured around 30,021 BTC can look radically different depending on which week you’re checking the numbers.
The players and why this matters
Adam Back is the CEO of BSTR and co-founder of Blockstream, one of Bitcoin’s most prominent infrastructure companies. Back is also a cypherpunk whose work on Hashcash was cited in Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin whitepaper.
On the other side sits Brandon Lutnick, CEO of CEPO and part of the Cantor Fitzgerald dynasty. The entire premise of this merger was to combine Cantor’s institutional muscle with BSTR’s Bitcoin-focused strategy.
What the renegotiation signals
The new terms haven’t been defined yet and will require updated SEC filings before anything moves forward. Traders and investors should monitor the updated SEC filings closely whenever they materialize. The revised valuation, the size of any new PIPE, and the number of BTC being contributed will tell the real story about whether this merger is still the landmark transaction it was originally positioned to be.