21 Capital: A Bitcoin Native Company

[fillippone]

21 Capital is a newly formed Bitcoin-focused investment company founded and backed by Tether, Cantor Fitzgerald, and SoftBank Group. Jack Mallers will serve as CEO



More information and a detailed description of the process that will lead to the creation of 21 Capital can be found in the official statement by Cantor:

Tether, SoftBank Group, and Jack Mallers Launch Twenty One, a Bitcoin-native Company, Through a Business Combination With Cantor Equity Partners

The funding structure of 21 Capital is structured as follows:

• Tether up about $1.6 billion in Bitcoin
• SoftBank  about $0.9 billion in Bitcoin
• Bitfinex about $0.6 billion in Bitcoin​
• Cantor Equity Partner about $0.2  billion in Equity
• Cantor Equity Partner about $0.585  billion in pledged investments
  
  • 385 Millions Senior Secured convertible Notes
  • 200 Millions Equity PIPE

With a planned public listing via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and over 42,000 BTC (worth roughly $3.6 billion) committed at launch, 21 Capital would immediately rank third among the largest corporate holders of Bitcoin.

Initially, the corporate valuation would be pegged at the treasury valuation. This represent a solid discount if compared to Strategy, which trades at 2x the value.



21 Capital aims to emulate and even rival the success of Strategy, formerly known as “MicroStrategy”) by accumulating Bitcoin as a primary treasury.

KPI will be similar to the one tracked by Strategy
21 Capital will have some advantage over Strategy:



At the moment 21 Capital is still incorporated in Cantor Equity Partner.
Nice trading over the last sessions:



I have to discover more.

A New Era: Measuring Success in Bitcoin
Twenty One is built to accumulate Bitcoin and grow ownership per share, not just track it.
As part of its launch, Twenty One will introduce two key performance metrics, to reflect its Bitcoin-denominated capital structure and Bitcoin-focused mindset.

• Bitcoin Per Share (BPS): Amount of Bitcoin each fully-diluted share represents, reflecting shareholder ownership in Bitcoin rather than fiat earnings per share
• Bitcoin Return Rate (BRR): Rate at which BPS grows over time, denominating the company's performance in Bitcoin

Strategy has almost the same KPI: the meaning of this is that the key success metrics will be Bitcoin denominated. Once again, the target of the investment is increasing the number of satoshis per shares, offering a positive Bitcoin Yield, something that is already a market practice in Hedge Funds investing in Bitcoin.

Also, the set of instruments by 21 Capital to attain this result will be similar to Strategy's one:

Twenty One and CEP have also entered into subscription agreements with investors to raise, at closing, $585 million of total additional capital consisting of (i) $385 million through convertible senior secured notes and (ii) $200 million through a common equity PIPE financing (the "PIPE Offerings", and together with the Business Combination, the "Proposed Transactions"). The net proceeds from the PIPE Offerings, which will close contemporaneously with the Business Combination, will be used to purchase additional Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes.  

21 Capital will use a combination of debt and equity instruments to finance the buying of bitcoin. The press release covers only the initial offerings, but I have no reason to doubt that the recipe will be repeated frequently, as Strategy has done after their initial purchase.

• Debt: Convertible Senior Secured Notes.
  Convertible Senior Secured Notes are a type of debt instrument, combining features of debt and equity securities.
  
  • Convertible
    Convertible notes can be exchanged (converted) into a specified number of shares of the issuer's common stock, a predetermined price or conversion rate. Investors have the option, to convert their debt into equity, usually when the company's stock price rises above a certain level. When it happens, the capital returned to investors exceeds the one they subscribe to the notes.  Convertibility gives investors potential participation in the company's growth through equity.
  • Senior
    "Senior" means these notes rank higher than subordinated debt or equity in the company's capital structure. If the company faces bankruptcy or liquidation, senior debt holders have a higher priority for repayment compared to junior (subordinated) creditors (Shareholders have an even lower priority). Seniority reduces investor risk, thus reducing the issuer's debt cost.
  • Secured
    Secured notes are backed by collateral or specific assets of the issuing company. In case of default, investors holding secured notes have claims against these pledged assets, which increases their chances of recovering their investment. In this case, the notes are secured by the Bitcoin resulting from the buy with the proceeds. Again, together with Seniority, this reduces the risk of the debt for the investor and the cost for the issuer.
    
    

• Equity: PIPE Offerings
  A PIPE Offering (Private Investment in Public Equity) is a financing arrangement in which institutional investors (accredited investors, banks, or hedge funds) directly purchase shares from a publicly traded company at a negotiated price.
  In essence, these are private placements: the shares are sold privately without initial public offering registration or wide public marketing to raise capital quickly with less regulation than traditional public offerings.
  

I am travelling as it it holiday in Italy.
I will have little or no time in the coming days to write this article, but this is too important not to be tracked. I will write this on my mobile. Trying to organise all the material. This will be a different animal from my "research first",  write later long forms.
Keep the OP under review, as it will be constantly updated.

[rdluffy]

A competitor for Strategy after all 
Interesting to see Tether, which was always quoted as the next to fall, being a giant and extremely profitable company

Could it be that in a few weeks or months we'll see posts from Strategy saying they've bought a few million BTC and then XXI also posting that they've bought a few million more?

It could be a very influential company for BTC, especially with Tether and Jack Mallers

[AirtelBuzz]

First of all congratulations on starting to invest in 21 Capital Bitcoin native company. This Bitcoin native company will provide various avenues for investors, such as Bitcoin exposure, pro-Bitcoin advocacy, etc. From what I've read, this company will start with around 42,000 plus Bitcoins initially, perhaps making it the third largest Bitcoin treasury. @HODL15Capital Twitter regularly publishes a list of the top 75 Bitcoin investing companies and we may soon see the names of 21 Bitcoin company.

This company's primary three presentation key slides,

[X-ray]

This one is actually solid for an investment, basically discounted MSTR but better.

I wonder if this gonna cause people to rotate from MSTR eventually.

Bitcoin's future and potential growth just keep getting brighter and brighter with all these undeniably.

[Free Market Capitalist]

First I wanna say here is that the Beat The Denominator is the best Youtube channel providing information about these bitcoin proxies.

Initially, the corporate valuation would be pegged at the treasury valuation. This represent a solid discount if compared to Strategy, which trades at 2x the value.

Are you sure about that? I think that if someone buys at that price it will be institutional investors who will have already agreed to buy at that price for the launch. I doubt that the general public is going to have that opportunity and even less seeing how CEP stock has behaved recently, of which XXI will be a merge.



You talk about this yourself but it doesn't quite square that the stock is going up pre-merge with there not going to be premium on NAV at launch, especially for the general public.

21 Capital will have some advantage over Strategy:

I would not take this for granted, it seems to me more marketing than anything else and in this sense I would recommend watching Beat The Denominator's video about it.

MSTR vs. XXI (CEP): Is XXI Really Better than MSTR?

[fillippone]

OP updated with few information about the structures used by 21 Capital to raise the capital needed to buy bitcoins.

The key play here will be the NAV multiplier: who will have the lower multiplier will be winner, amongst Strategy and 21 Capital.

[kotajikikox]

A competitor for Strategy after all 
Interesting to see Tether, which was always quoted as the next to fall, being a giant and extremely profitable company

It is commendable because despite the challenges they managed to keep going and even get themselves improving. It is not like they are crashing down as of the moment but it is known that they are battling some regulations especially in the EU which everyone thought would affect them badly but it seems like they were able to move past it.

Could it be that in a few weeks or months we'll see posts from Strategy saying they've bought a few million BTC and then XXI also posting that they've bought a few million more?

It will not be a surprise. We knew this would happen so we should really not doubt any more further and keep accumulating bitcoin.

[takuma sato]

That infographic forgot to mention the fact that Strategy has a massive 540k BTC advantage over this company that just started. So if they want to frontrun Strategy they have a ton of buying to do, and guess what, the more other companies buy in order to overtake Strategy's leading position, the more Strategy will benefit since their BTC holdings go up, and the more convertible bonds and ATM they can do to buy more BTC and so follows. So MSTR is positioned to stay a leader, unless some Massive buying starts, and they would also prove to be able to survive an entire bear market as Saylor already did without blowing up. In fact Strategy's asset to liabilities ratio now are better than ever. So I think this is a all horses win race here, where it doesn't matter since BTC will go up and these companies will benefit, but I just don't see XXI surpassing MSTR as the leader in BTC proxies.

[Accardo]

Senior
"Senior" means these notes rank higher than subordinated debt or equity in the company's capital structure. If the company faces bankruptcy or liquidation, senior debt holders have a higher priority for repayment compared to junior (subordinated) creditors (Shareholders have an even lower priority). Seniority reduces investor risk, thus reducing the issuer's debt cost.
Secured
Secured notes are backed by collateral or specific assets of the issuing company. In case of default, investors holding secured notes have claims against these pledged assets, which increases their chances of recovering their investment.

The senior loan is quite a subordinate to the secured debt because the lender has no lien - a claim to the company assets, which isn't meant to be so. I wouldn't consider it a senior debt if it's insecure, and places investors in a lesser 'siniority' in the company's capital structure. The Secured debt should rather be rephrased as the Senior loan, and the other first 'senior loan' as subordinate. Because a senior loan with collateral (it wasn't specified, I assume that the senior debt in 21 capital has no collateral) is no different with the secured debt explaination you have here. However, I have a question - preferred stock is it in pari passu with secured loan?

[Free Market Capitalist]

• Equity: PIPE Offerings
  A PIPE Offering (Private Investment in Public Equity) is a financing arrangement in which institutional investors (accredited investors, banks, or hedge funds) directly purchase shares from a publicly traded company at a negotiated price.
  In essence, these are private placements: the shares are sold privately without initial public offering registration or wide public marketing to raise capital quickly with less regulation than traditional public offerings.
  

Here the doubt I have is whether the initial offering of shares will be made via PIPE, therefore not accessible to the general public, or not. I am pretty sure of the former as it would be very rare that with the expectation that is being created and the growth of CEP's share price that the public is given the opportunity to buy so cheaply, without premium over NAV.

In any case I think the competition is good, and a Mallers vs Saylor won't hurt the rest of us.

That infographic forgot to mention the fact that Strategy has a massive 540k BTC advantage over this company that just started. So if they want to frontrun Strategy they have a ton of buying to do, and guess what, the more other companies buy in order to overtake Strategy's leading position, the more Strategy will benefit since their BTC holdings go up, and the more convertible bonds and ATM they can do to buy more BTC and so follows. So MSTR is positioned to stay a leader, unless some Massive buying starts, and they would also prove to be able to survive an entire bear market as Saylor already did without blowing up. In fact Strategy's asset to liabilities ratio now are better than ever. So I think this is a all horses win race here, where it doesn't matter since BTC will go up and these companies will benefit, but I just don't see XXI surpassing MSTR as the leader in BTC proxies.

No, they haven't forgotten, I think they are doing pure marketing which is even a bit misleading. On the one hand it is true that by starting with much less bitcoins, XXI will potentially be able to grow the BPS much more than Strategy, which we think that by having more than half a million bitcoins, if it wants to double the BPS it will have to acquire another half a million bitcoins. While XXI is more likely to make an X10 in BPS, what they don't mention is that each bitcoin they buy adds buying pressure and will potentially increase the dollar price of the bitcoins that Strategy already has (and the rest of us).

As the video I mentioned in my previous comment said, I think they have it wrong. This should not be a game in which if XXI succeeds Strategy loses, on the contrary, the more people buy bitcoin the more we benefit the rest, and in this case it is the same, the more companies buy bitcoin the more Strategy benefits and everyone who has bitcoin.

[Popkon6]

Strategy Stock Could Climb as New Rival Twenty One Validates Its Bitcoin Strategy
TD Cowen says launch of Twenty One could shift institutional sentiment and validate MSTR’s long-term bitcoin strategy.

TD Cowen says Twenty One’s bitcoin-focused structure echoes Strategy’s and affirms its treasury strategy.
It called it the most significant validation yet of MSTR’s bitcoin treasury model.
The analysts maintained a $550 price target for MSTR and projected $129B in bitcoin holdings by the end of 2027.
Michael Saylor's bitcoin buying strategy had both believers and skeptics. But a new rival just emerged, already holding nearly $4 billion BTC on its balance sheet—and it's a bullish sign, according to at least one Wall Street analyst.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/04/24/strategy-stock-could-climb-as-new-rival-twenty-one-validates-its-bitcoin-strategy

Since Saylor has been notified of Twenty One Company as a competitor, let's see how long it can last in competition with Michael Saylor. Saylor is an experienced Bitcoin holder who has been buying and holding Bitcoin for a long time, but of course, the difference between the two companies will ultimately be noticeable in the case of Bitcoin purchases.

[fillippone]

A competitor for Strategy after all 
Interesting to see Tether, which was always quoted as the next to fall, being a giant and extremely profitable company

It is commendable because despite the challenges they managed to keep going and even get themselves improving. It is not like they are crashing down as of the moment but it is known that they are battling some regulations especially in the EU which everyone thought would affect them badly but it seems like they were able to move past it.

Could it be that in a few weeks or months we'll see posts from Strategy saying they've bought a few million BTC and then XXI also posting that they've bought a few million more?

It will not be a surprise. We knew this would happen so we should really not doubt any more further and keep accumulating bitcoin.

Tether is the main orchestrator behind this operation.
Just remember that Cantor holds a lot of their Treasuries, so their interest is pretty aligned.
With this move with some reputable tradfi players, Ardoino is trying to access Wall Street, something that wasn’t in the cards until a few months ago for an offshore company.
More on that later.

[d5000]

This should not be a game in which if XXI succeeds Strategy loses, on the contrary, the more people buy bitcoin the more we benefit the rest, and in this case it is the same, the more companies buy bitcoin the more Strategy benefits and everyone who has bitcoin.

I have doubts it's so simple, but I may be wrong on this.

My understanding is: Strategy is benefitting currently that it caters to a market of -- primarily institutional -- investors who want exposure to Bitcoin but has no other means to invest in it as they need fixed-income financial products. This market has limited demand, as all other potential investors can get exposure cheaper by 1) buying BTC, or 2) even by buying ETFs and leveraged ETF products.

If this market now gets a new player, assuming the demand for these financial products stays the same, the demand for MSTR should weaken at least a little bit. This would lead into the premium erode over time. While this also makes the MSTR product less risky it also reduces its volatility, and volatility is one of the primary ingredients of MSTR-style business models due to the importance of "gamma trading" (see this FT article). In general it could make MSTR's product less attractive over time, which may eventually lead to decreasing income of the company.

Of course it is possible that the appearance of a second big competitor could also lead to more demand for their products, and thus indirectly for BTC, because those who doubt get a "confirmation" that this business model is viable, as @Popkon6 wrote, and also because of their initially more beneficial terms for investors. I also think that one single competitor more (in this case XXI) would probably not put the MSTR model in danger. But anyway I think the demand for these products is still limited because of ETFs and BTC itself as "competitors", and it may be difficult to accomodate more players without harming the business model.

Am I understanding something wrong? I had also discussions in the Spanish forum about a related issue.

[heraware]

Nice summary Their Bitcoin-per-Share and Bitcoin Return Rate metrics mirror MicroStrategy but come with a SPAC discount. I’d love to see more public firms adopt this model. As each new buyer tightens liquid supply, it will help fuel the next bull run

[Free Market Capitalist]

Am I understanding something wrong? I had also discussions in the Spanish forum about a related issue.

Yes it's wrong the basis of your reasoning.

My understanding is: Strategy is benefitting currently that it caters to a market of -- primarily institutional -- investors who want exposure to Bitcoin but has no other means to invest in it as they need fixed-income financial products. This market has limited demand, as all other potential investors can get exposure cheaper by 1) buying BTC, or 2) even by buying ETFs and leveraged ETF products.

MicroStrategy Incorporated (MSTR) has 1,474 institutional owners and shareholders who have filed 13D/G or 13F forms with the SEC, holding a total of 122,246,962 shares. These institutions represent 30.76% of the company's stock.

The statement is provided by Google AI using this article as source.

I am editing to add this information here:

Retail investors own a significant portion of MicroStrategy (MSTR) stock, with estimates ranging from 47% to 59.30%. This indicates that a large number of individual investors hold MSTR shares.

Source is again google AI with this article as main source:

Retail investors own a significant portion of MicroStrategy (MSTR) stock, with estimates ranging from 47% to 59.30%. This indicates that a large number of individual investors hold MSTR shares

If this market now gets a new player, assuming the demand for these financial products stays the same,

Wrong assumption again. Why should it stay the same? Has the bitcoin demand stated the same over the years?

A pleasure to debate with you even though we often have conflicting opinions, but starting from two premises that in my opinion are incorrect I will not comment further on what you have said.

What I was coming to comment is the embarrassment I felt for the first time when I saw Mallers presenting XXI.

Jack Mallers Launches XXI, A Strategy Competitor (Full Video Announcement Included)

At the beginning of the video he kept repeating the concept of Bitcoin per Share, which he has not invented but seems to want to attribute and more towards the end he repeated dozens of times the word bitcoin, in a more tiresome way that I have not even seen the last minutes.

I was considering buying some shares of XXI Capital, depending on the price and to diversify what I have of MSTR but if it is for that presentation I do not buy any. Now everything is going to depend on the price when it is available to the public and the premium over NAV.

Nice summary Their Bitcoin-per-Share and Bitcoin Return Rate metrics mirror MicroStrategy but come with a SPAC discount. I’d love to see more public firms adopt this model. As each new buyer tightens liquid supply, it will help fuel the next bull run

The problem with this is that they want to claim the concept of BPS, which is false. The BRR I believe is new. And as I've said before, I highly doubt the discounted stock is available to the general public. In the OP (edited) I think that is implied with the PIPE offering.

[Catenaccio]

Tether is the main orchestrator behind this operation.
Just remember that Cantor holds a lot of their Treasuries, so their interest is pretty aligned.
With this move with some reputable tradfi players, Ardoino is trying to access Wall Street, something that wasn’t in the cards until a few months ago for an offshore company.
More on that later.

Tether is the big player in this industry and with their treasury engages bigger to US. bond market, it can make Bitcoin and cryptocurrency companies and investors feel safer.

Though there are more reports and better transparency with time, Tether and their USDT minting are still something vague, shady and there are risk of address and fund freeze by Tether company through smart contracts.

Tether minted more USDT.
PSA: Most Stablecoins Can Be Frozen, Even in Your Own Wallets
USDT banned addresses with total 1,434,061,573 USDT in those banned addresses.
https://dune.com/phabc/usdt---banned-addresses

A latest audits report.

[d5000]

-snip-

Thanks for the stats. My source was an article on investing.com which was skeptical about MSTR's prospects. They didn't claim that institutionals were the majority of the investors, but that a sub-group of institutionals depending on fixed-income products seem to be important for the company's business model because they can't access to other (cheaper) means to gain exposure to BTC, so MSTR has (had) a monopoly in that field.

The crucial question remains: Who should buy MSTR shares if 1) one can buy Bitcoin directly and 2) one can buy ETFs if you want a leveraged exposure or don't have access to BTC spot, if both of these options are cheaper than MSTR regarding the risk premium? 21 Capital should have the same problem. The only really important reason I can see is indeed volatility just due to the risk premium, but you could simply increase your leverage on ETFs.

Here's a cite from that article:

Tom Lee is correct in that investors limited solely to fixed-income investments, now have a way to gain exposure to Bitcoin. However, there are much better options for anyone else wanting to own Bitcoin. As we noted earlier, MicroStrategy’s stock valuation is at least double that of the Bitcoin it holds. And, as a reminder, its software business has almost no value. One could even argue it has a negative value. Accordingly, investors who want to buy Bitcoin should just buy Bitcoin or the numerous Bitcoin ETFs available. Furthermore, investors can buy call options on Bitcoin or Bitcoin ETFs, which essentially is what the convertible debt is.

I have seen also justifications for the premium based on the assumption that MSTR could lend the BTC or enter "staking" agreements, i.e. "make their BTC work" to generate income, but I think the potential income from that source is probably limited. And Google's AI states that they currently do not lend out their BTC (source from late 2024, though).

Regarding the second assumption:

Wrong assumption again. Why should it stay the same? Has the bitcoin demand stated the same over the years?

I clarified that further down in the previous post. The assumption that demand stays the same is important for projections involving other variables, before you start speculating on demand evolution.

Demand can of course increase due to a lot of factors. But it is then because a new competitor enters? It is possible, because both players (MSTR and 21 Capital) will intensify their marketing activity due to increased competition, and in addition 21 Capital could offer some terms which cater to those who have doubts about MSTR's terms or simply don't like Saylor, for example. But I think these effects are probably relatively small, above all if one again thinks about the question above: who's exactly the intended public?

The comparison with Bitcoin demand here doesn't make sense in this context because the Bitcoin (circulating/total) supply is predictable. The focus of my post was the influence of the market entry of 21 Capital, not some other factors which could influence demand.

[fillippone]

The problem with this is that they want to claim the concept of BPS, which is false. The BRR I believe is new. And as I've said before, I highly doubt the discounted stock is available to the general public. In the OP (edited) I think that is implied with the PIPE offering.

BRR is nothing more than the Bitcoin Yield in Strategy jargon. Ideally, it is a little bit more sophisticated, as the BTC Yield is a very approximate return index.
As far as PIPE is concerned, while I am pretty sure the initial offering was made at 10 USD per share, looking at the current price of CEP (30 USD, roughly), even if they accept you in the PIPE (where "you" is a generic accredited investor, most likely someone willing to put north of 50 million on the table), I highly doubt you would be allowed to, but at 10 USD per share, 25 USD more realistically.

[takuma sato]

• Equity: PIPE Offerings
  A PIPE Offering (Private Investment in Public Equity) is a financing arrangement in which institutional investors (accredited investors, banks, or hedge funds) directly purchase shares from a publicly traded company at a negotiated price.
  In essence, these are private placements: the shares are sold privately without initial public offering registration or wide public marketing to raise capital quickly with less regulation than traditional public offerings.
  

Here the doubt I have is whether the initial offering of shares will be made via PIPE, therefore not accessible to the general public, or not. I am pretty sure of the former as it would be very rare that with the expectation that is being created and the growth of CEP's share price that the public is given the opportunity to buy so cheaply, without premium over NAV.

In any case I think the competition is good, and a Mallers vs Saylor won't hurt the rest of us.

That infographic forgot to mention the fact that Strategy has a massive 540k BTC advantage over this company that just started. So if they want to frontrun Strategy they have a ton of buying to do, and guess what, the more other companies buy in order to overtake Strategy's leading position, the more Strategy will benefit since their BTC holdings go up, and the more convertible bonds and ATM they can do to buy more BTC and so follows. So MSTR is positioned to stay a leader, unless some Massive buying starts, and they would also prove to be able to survive an entire bear market as Saylor already did without blowing up. In fact Strategy's asset to liabilities ratio now are better than ever. So I think this is a all horses win race here, where it doesn't matter since BTC will go up and these companies will benefit, but I just don't see XXI surpassing MSTR as the leader in BTC proxies.

No, they haven't forgotten, I think they are doing pure marketing which is even a bit misleading. On the one hand it is true that by starting with much less bitcoins, XXI will potentially be able to grow the BPS much more than Strategy, which we think that by having more than half a million bitcoins, if it wants to double the BPS it will have to acquire another half a million bitcoins. While XXI is more likely to make an X10 in BPS, what they don't mention is that each bitcoin they buy adds buying pressure and will potentially increase the dollar price of the bitcoins that Strategy already has (and the rest of us).

As the video I mentioned in my previous comment said, I think they have it wrong. This should not be a game in which if XXI succeeds Strategy loses, on the contrary, the more people buy bitcoin the more we benefit the rest, and in this case it is the same, the more companies buy bitcoin the more Strategy benefits and everyone who has bitcoin.

Indeed as I pointed this is a all horses win type of race, anyone holding Bitcoin will benefit, but at the end of the day they are private companies competing against each other. MSTR has the massive headstart, and as XXI buys more BTC, MSTR becomes more powerful because of that. Michael Saylor frontrunned everyone. This doesn't mean XXI cannot be acreetive to their shareholders, is just that I would prefer to hold MSTR if I wanted a BTC proxy with some leverage because of their successful track record and massive stack.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

even if they accept you in the PIPE (where "you" is a generic accredited investor, most likely someone willing to put north of 50 million on the table)

We know that those derivative products are for institutional investors with huge capital and ignore a fact that small investors can not access those products, big games like this are both new fuels and catalysts for the Bitcoin Snowball.

If we are small inestors with available small capital, we can simply purchase bitcoin by ourselves, buy a hardware wallet and store bitcoin by ourselves too. This way we are controlling our Bitcoin private keys and actually own bitcoins.

They are institutional investors but they won't own any private keys but let's they choose it if they like. The Bitcoin snowball was already kicked off and it won't stop.