(Bloomberg) — American Bitcoin Corp., the Trump family-backed miner that rode the crypto euphoria to a blockbuster Nasdaq debut, is caught in the wreckage of the industry’s deepest rout since 2022.
The Miami-based firm reported a $59 million loss for the fourth quarter on Thursday, results that come amid a stock selloff that has wiped out almost 90% of the firm’s market value since the September high as the broader Trump digital-asset trade misfires.
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American Bitcoin doubled down on a pure mining-and-hoarding strategy just as virtually every major rival fled to artificial intelligence, a bet championed by co-founder Eric Trump that looked prescient when Bitcoin was surging past $126,000 and increasingly precarious with the token trading around $70,000. The cost of that conviction was apparent in a $227 million unrealized loss registered for the year from writing down the value of the company’s Bitcoin reserves.
“With Bitcoin steeply drawn down from the highs, the retention strategy can amplify losses,” said Matthew Kimmell, a digital asset analyst at CoinShares. “The inventory loses value on a mark-to-market basis and investors can begin pricing in balance sheet stress before it appears in operations.”
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg
The downturn puts American Bitcoin at the sharp end of a broader pullback across the Trump family’s crypto interests. World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance platform that hosted Wall Street executives at Mar-a-Lago this month, has seen a 65% plunge in its native token since the cryptocurrency was launched in September. The president’s own memecoin is grappling with a bigger decline, dropping 72% since it started trading in March.
The pivot is notable given that American Data Centers Inc. — the entity backed by the Trump sons — was originally designed to be an AI infrastructure provider before it became part of what was eventually American Bitcoin.
Few of the Trump-affiliated ventures have matched American Bitcoin’s pace of decline — its shares saw a flash crash of about 50% on Dec. 2. While American Bitcoin was pledging to hold every token it mined, the rest of the crypto-mining industry was sprinting in the opposite direction. The largest Bitcoin miners such as MARA Holdings and Riot Platforms have started transitioning some of its sites into AI infrastructure, while other miners including Cipher Mining and TeraWulf have initiated more aggressive shifts, selling part or all of their coin reserves as well as mining sites.
For now, American Bitcoin’s path to recovery runs through forces largely outside its control. The company’s mining-and-treasury model only works if Bitcoin resumes its climb. Revenue rose 22% from the third quarter. The administration’s stated commitment to making crypto a national priority — including holding Bitcoin as a government reserve — could provide a tailwind for the broader sector.
“I am focused on American Bitcoin and World Liberty,” Eric Trump said in a Feb. 19 interview, when asked if he is interested in board seats of traditional crypto exchanges. “I want to literally merge modern digital finance with real-world hard assets.”
In March, the Trump family unveiled a plan to launch a Bitcoin mining-focused venture with Hut 8 Corp., which transferred all its mining assets to the new firm and shifted its focus to AI data centers.
That launch of the mining venture followed Hut 8’s acquisition of a majority interest in American Data Centers, the company formed by a group of investors including Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Following that transaction, American Data Centers was renamed and relaunched as American Bitcoin.
The move echoes President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge in 2024 to make every remaining Bitcoin mined in the US. While that’s nearly impossible to achieve given the fierce competition among miners across the globe, his tariff policies have made it harder still since most of the hardware has tended to be imported from China.
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