Trump-backed American Bitcoin debuts on Nasdaq

American Bitcoin, the Hut 8 subsidiary backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., began trading on the Nasdaq today under the ticker “ABTC” as a pure-play bitcoin accumulation platform. This follows a recently completed all-stock merger with Gryphon Digital.

Matt Prusak, American Bitcoin’s president, told Sherwood News that the company, which the Trump brothers along with Hut 8 launched in March, will focus solely on bitcoin accumulation. It will use a dual accumulation strategy that integrates self-mining operations and opportunistic bitcoin purchases, which sets it apart. 

Prusak said that the impetus for listing the company now was institutional adoption going mainstream. The company also chose to go public via a reverse merger instead of an IPO for speed.

“It’s an exciting day. We worked hard to get through this process. This is not the finish line — now it’s about the execution, hash rates, and building the reserve. The listing is opening the door; the real work starts now,” Prusak said. 

American Bitcoin holds 2,400 bitcoin and intends to accumulate “as fast as possible,” Prusak said, declining to give specific numbers or a timeline. 

The company will use Hut 8 as leverage by monetizing ASIC technology and the bitcoin miner’s colocation infrastructure platform “to mine bitcoin without the need to commit significant capital to build and operate proprietary data centers,” according to a press release. 

Prusak said the Trump brothers, Hut 8, and other major shareholders, such as Gemini cofounders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, will own 98% of the new entity.  

He also underscored that the competition in the bitcoin treasury space “is real” but that American Bitcoin “won’t drift.”

“We don’t have side hustles. We are not focused on AI or data centers,” he said. 

In addition, he said that capital markets can be punishing, you need scale, and that another challenge some companies face is discipline, as many miners “get distracted by side businesses.”

In terms of expansion, Prusak said that while the company’s core strategy and infrastructure are in the US, it might look to buy crypto assets in Asia, specifically in Japan. 

When asked what makes American Bitcoin “American,” Prusak said that it’s “in its DNA.”

“We are headquartered in the US, and we are offering US investors and US capital markets a pure-play bitcoin company. The US has the chance to own the future of money,” he said. 

“Our Nasdaq debut marks a historic milestone in bringing Bitcoin into the core of U.S. capital markets and advancing our mission to make America the undisputed leader of the global Bitcoin economy,” Eric Trump, American Bitcoin cofounder and chief strategy officer, said in the release.