New York, May 25, 2026, 12:01 EDT
Cantor Equity Partners I Inc is steady at Friday’s close as the U.S. heads into a shorter trading week. Nasdaq is closed for Memorial Day. Investors are waiting on the next move in its planned deal with Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company.
CEPO’s trading isn’t driven by earnings or sales at this point. The company is a SPAC — basically a cash shell that raises funds up front and then looks for a business to merge with. Right now, the story is whether BSTR can get a bitcoin-treasury deal done before June ends. According to Nasdaq’s 2026 schedule, markets close May 25 for Memorial Day. Trading hours are set for 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern on open days. Nasdaq
CEPO finished at $10.58 on May 22, almost flat. Shares started at $10.59 and held in a tight range, trading between $10.58 and $10.59. Volume was 7,117. Market cap sat around $269.8 million, according to Google Finance. Google
Last week didn’t bring a rerating for the stock. Shares mostly hovered near the $10 typical of blank-check deals, with not much in the way of new company news to trade on apart from existing filings.
BSTR’s Form S-4 is still the main document for the deal. CEPO said in a filing on May 14 that BSTR had made the S-4 public. The filing includes a preliminary proxy and prospectus. The companies aim to close the transaction by the end of the second quarter, pending usual conditions.
The next few days are set to be about mechanics. Investors are still waiting for a set proxy, record date and meeting date, which would give the market a clear schedule. The stock is likely to trade on the timing of the deal, rather than on moves in the wider indexes, until those details are out.
BSTR was unveiled last July as a bitcoin-treasury play aiming to list as BSTR after the deal closed. At launch, the plan called for 30,021 bitcoin in the treasury, up to $1.5 billion in fiat PIPE financing — private investment in public equity, meaning securities sold outside a traditional offering — and possibly a $200 million injection from CEPO, depending on redemptions. Dr. Adam Back, BSTR co-founder and CEO, said at the time the company was designed to bring bitcoin’s “integrity to modern capital markets.” CEPO Chairman and CEO Brandon Lutnick called it a move toward connecting bitcoin and traditional finance. Nasdaq
Bitcoin was quoted near $77,548 on Monday as it continued trading through the U.S. holiday. On the equity side ahead of the long weekend, Strategy Inc slipped almost 3% in its last session, Twenty One Capital lost about 4.4%, while MARA Holdings eked out a 1.8% gain. Crypto-linked stocks are still uneven.
Competition is picking up. Twenty One Capital, which focuses on bitcoin and is also listed, said last week it plans to expand from just treasury exposure into areas like financial services, mining, lending, and capital markets. That ups the stakes for BSTR, which will have to prove it can move past just holding a big bitcoin stash if its CEPO deal goes through. Business Wire
The deal isn’t finished yet. CEPO’s filing lists several risks—shareholder redemptions, missed closing conditions, listing trouble, and the risk that the stock will move with bitcoin. If bitcoin drops, or if a lot of CEPO holders want their cash back and bail on the deal, the merged company could end up with less liquidity and less money than the top-line deal terms suggest.
Tuesday’s trading starts with $10.58 as the main line in the sand. A sharp move off that price probably needs a new filing, more details on when the vote happens, or a firmer move in bitcoin.
