American Bitcoin, a crypto mining company linked to the Trump family, ended its choppy first day on the Nasdaq up over 16%, adding millions to the US first familyโs wealth.
The company, backed by US President Donald Trumpโs sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., went public after merging with the existing Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Gryphon Digital Mining (GRYP).
In early trading on Wednesday, American Bitcoin (ABTC) shot up 91% from Gryphonโs Tuesday closing price of $6.90 to a peak of $13.20 before falling by half to an afternoon low of $6.72.
The Nasdaq halted trading of American Bitcoin shares five times throughout the day due to volatility, but it ended the dayโs session up 16.52% at just over $8 and has climbed over 5% after-hours to $8.45.
American Bitcoin is the Trump familyโs latest addition to its growing crypto portfolio and joins a trend of public companies that have joined the sector by going public or switching to focus on buying crypto.
Bitcoin โfloodgatesโ are opening, says Eric Trump
Eric Trump, American Bitcoinโs co-founder and strategy chief, told Bloomberg on Wednesday that his companyโs public launch was โan unbelievable day and a lot of hard work thatโs finally come to fruition.โ
He added that he started the business after owning Bitcoin for several years and seeing โhow much itโs being embraced globally.โ
โThe floodgates are just starting to open, so itโs kind of a perfect time,โ he added.
The US rose to second place on Chainalysisโ crypto adoption index, which was released on Wednesday, with the analytics firm citing President Trumpโs crypto-friendly policies as a major driver.
Eric Trump swatted away concerns that the venture could be seen as profiting from his fatherโs crypto-friendly policies, saying the criticism was โtotally illegitimate.โ
โI got into this business because I was illegitimately debanked from every financial platform in the country,โ he claimed. โMy father has nothing to do with this business.โ
He added that President Trump had โalways been a proponentโ of cryptocurrency, which โprobably helped get him elected.โ Donald Trump previously said cryptocurrencies are โbased on thin airโ and that Bitcoin โseems like a scam.โ
American Bitcoin to buy and mine
Eric Trump said that the firm would both mine and buy Bitcoin, switching between the strategies to โwhichever is better at the time.โ
โThereโs only a certain amount of Bitcoin that can be mined every day, and weโre going to harness that to the absolute fullest,โ he said. โAt the same time, we can be creative. We can go out and we can purchase Bitcoin, hold down the treasury and again allow the mining to dollar cost average down.โ
โWeโre going to be implementing both strategies; whichever is best for shareholder value is obviously what weโre going to prioritize.โ
The company owns 2,443 BTC, the 25th-largest holding among public companies. With Bitcoin trading flat at around $111,850, the stash is worth $273 million.
Second Trump crypto venture this week
American Bitcoin is the Trump familyโs second crypto venture to go public this week, after tokens for their crypto project World Liberty Financial were listed on crypto exchanges for the first time on Monday.
The project unlocked around a quarter of its 100 billion total supply for the World Liberty Financial (WLFI) token, allowing its earliest investors to sell out of the cryptocurrency.
WLFI has dropped 30% from its debut price and has continued to fall over 7% in the last 24 hours to just over 21 cents, CoinGecko shows.
President Trump and sons Eric, Donald Jr and Baron Trump are all named in the project, and a company tied to them receives most of the revenue it generates. That company also owns nearly a quarter of all WLFI, worth nearly $4.8 billion.
As for Eric Trump, Bloomberg estimated that his roughly 7.5% stake in American Bitcoin is worth about $548 million.
He said when asked about his stake that โweโre incredibly fortunate in life with or without this endeavor.โย
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