SPACs in the crypto space with a high chance of spiking upward
I’ve been digging deeper into the crypto treasury bubble theme, which I touched on in the recent RTACU and CEPO/CEPT write-ups. Those still look like the most compelling bets—backed by politically connected sponsors who clearly know how to play the game.
That said, there are a few other SPACs with pretty interesting angles that fit into this same theme and are worth keeping on the radar: TACO (covered below), CCCM (here), PCAPU (here), MBAV (here).
Berto Acquisition (TACO)
TACO is a fresh SPAC that IPO’d in late April. The most compelling aspects of this SPAC are highly credible sponsor and a ticker with clear meme potential. The vehicle is led by Harry You, whose background includes serving as executive VP of EMC (during its $67bn buyout by Dell), executive VP at Oracle, and CFO of Accenture. More relevantly, he has one of the stronger SPAC track records around. Most of his past deals traded well above trust value: IONQ is at $39/share today, GENI and RSI both peaked at $24, and WGS peaked at $14.
For those who’ve been living under a rock, TACO also stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out”, one of the ‘hottest’ current memes among retail traders. If the SPAC lands even a halfway decent merger, the ticker alone could drive a wave of speculative interest. The stock trades at $10.53 (versus ~$10 trust value), so you’re paying minimally for the upside optionality.
It’s notable that the SPAC was upsized from $250m to $261m (excluding the underwriter’s over-allotment), which is rare.
- IPO Date: April 30, 2025
- IPO Size: $300m (including $39m taken by the underwriters)
- IPO Price: $10/share
- Warrants: TACOW ($0.87)
- Sponsor’s stake: 20%
- Sector preference: AI, wellness, longevity
- Trust value: ~$10
- Current Price: $10.53 (common shares)
How do you play these? Buy the common, buy the warrants? And at what point do you sell, the despac’ing?
There’s nothing sophisticated about these trades. The idea is simple – any of these SPACs can spike if they announce the right deal. Common shares offer interesting optionality on that upside, with downside protected by trust value.
In this market, the right deal can pull in heavy speculative inflows. Just look at what happened with CEP. If no deal materializes, or it is not received well by the market, the stock price is basically floored by trust value. In case of a merger, the trust value protection stays until the transaction closes, giving plenty of time to exit.
Warrants, on the other hand, come with no such protection.
What is the average time between merger announcement and closing?
Around 3-4 months. You can find more info on the whole process here:
– https://www.dfinsolutions.com/knowledge-hub/thought-leadership/knowledge-resources/what-de-spac-transaction
– https://www.reddit.com/r/SPACs/comments/lpgd3l/research_timeline_from_da_to_despac/
Among the four SPACs you mentioned in the update, PCAPU and TACO are the two actionable ideas for cheap optionality, and the other two are currently too expensive but worth watching? Do I understand correctly?
Are there any precedents of SPACS trading under trust value once they fail?
Yes, when a SPAC fails to complete a merger and moves to liquidate, it can trade at a slight discount to that trust value in the weeks or months leading up to the final liquidation and cash distribution. I’ve seen it a few times. But the discounts were always very small (a few %). I think it’s mostly due to time value of money.
Among the SPACs currently covered by SSI, TACO has the lowest premium over trust value, and thus the highest margin of safety.
But it probably has the lowest meme potential. I don’t recall many examples of retail traders excited by a ticker name.
OnMed LLC (“OnMed”), creator of the OnMed CareStation™, the healthcare access infrastructure solution, and Berto Acquisition Corp. (“Berto”)(NASDAQ: TACO and TACOW), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company led by Harry You, jointly announced today that they have entered into a non-binding letter of intent (“LOI”) for a business combination.
The parties will announce additional details regarding the proposed business combination when a definitive agreement is executed.
TACO has dropped -4%, as the market clearly expected a more explosive target, i.e. something in the quantum computing space, where Harry You has experience. A non-binding merger agreement is somewhat unusual for SPACs, but it is not the first time for Harry You’s vehicles. In February 2025, his other SPAC dMY Squared entered into a non-binding LOI with Horizon Quantum. The definitive agreement was announced in September, so it may take some time before binding papers are finalized here as well.
In any case, I’m removing this one from the active cases with a minimal -3% loss.
In the case of DMYY/Horizon Quantum, market response was underwhelming initially after Feb 2025 non-binding offer announcement and stock price shot up only starting late Apr 2025.
I am not familiar with DMYY’s timeline/development and events during that period, but can we hope the same for TACO? The odd of a change of fortunate is not large (or unknown), but the optionality is cheap (1% max downside to trust value).