Bitcoin Standard to go public in $1.5B Cantor-backed SPAC deal, becomes 4th largest public bitcoin holder

Bitcoin just blasted past $120,000 for the first time—and crypto companies are wasting no time cashing in.

Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company is the latest to ride the wave, announcing plans to go public through a $1.5 billion SPAC deal backed by Wall Street giant Cantor Fitzgerald. The deal will see the company trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker “BSTR” by the end of 2025, the two companies announced Thursday.

The news comes just a week after ReserveOne also filed to go public in a $1B SPAC deal backed by Kraken, Tether’s co-founder, and former U.S. Commerce Secretary.

With over 30,000 bitcoins on its balance sheet, Bitcoin Standard is set to become the fourth-largest publicly listed bitcoin treasury. The move reflects a growing shift: crypto is no longer a speculative side bet. It’s becoming part of corporate finance playbooks—and fast.

Bitcoin Standard’s SPAC merger is being executed through Cantor Equity Partners I, a blank-check company chaired by Brandon Lutnick, son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. It’s not Cantor’s first bold crypto bet. The firm recently backed another SPAC that joined forces with SoftBank and Tether for a $3.6 billion bitcoin-focused venture.

“Crypto treasury strategies are a hot topic we’ve been strategizing about with some of our family clients,” said Michael Ashley Schulman, partner at Running Point Capital Advisors, told Reuters.

Those strategies were pioneered by StrategyChairman Michael Saylor, whose company now holds a staggering 601,550 bitcoin—the most of any public entity. What once seemed like a fringe idea has become a playbook others are now copying, Reuters reported.

SPACs—short for special purpose acquisition companies—have become a popular route for startups to go public without the traditional IPO process. These shell companies raise funds from investors and then look for a private company to merge with, turning it into a publicly traded firm. So far in 2025, SPACs represent 71 of the 105 IPOs—or 67% of the U.S. total, according to SPACAnalytics.com.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin Standard’s merger isn’t happening in isolation. Just last week, Truth Social—the social media platform owned by Trump Media & Technology Group—filed to launch the “Truth Social Crypto Blue Chip ETF.” The fund would offer investors exposure to top cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The timing is no accident. As digital assets surge and regulatory momentum builds, public companies are racing to stake their claim in crypto.

With lawmakers poised to pass a federal framework for stablecoins and crypto prices surging, the window for early positioning appears to be closing. Bitcoin Standard’s move isn’t just about listing on the Nasdaq—it’s a bid to lock in legitimacy before crypto finance goes fully mainstream.