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American Bitcoin, the US cryptocurrency miner backed by Eric and Donald Trump Jr, will list its new venture on Nasdaq, aiming to tap into investors’ enthusiasm for equity vehicles that stockpile cryptocurrencies.
The company, formed at the end of March, announced an all-share merger with Gryphon Digital Mining to turn it into “the most investable Bitcoin accumulation platform in the market”.
In a separate move on Monday, BTC Inc, the company behind Bitcoin Magazine, said it had struck a deal to merge its blank cheque investment vehicle Nakamoto Holdings with Nasdaq-listed opioid healthcare KindlyMD, to raise $710mn in equity and convertible debt to buy bitcoin for its corporate treasury.
The moves to tap equity investors highlight the revival of the cryptocurrency industry under President Donald Trump, who has promised to make the US the world’s “crypto capital”.
The president has courted the digital assets industry and softened the administration’s approach to enforcement while he and his sons have launched their own currencies and crypto projects.
Bitcoin has surged more than 35 per cent to $104,280 since touching a low on April 7 amid a rebound for risky assets driven by hopes that Washington’s tariffs on most countries will be less aggressive than feared. Global stocks jumped on Monday after the US and China agreed to scale back tariffs for 90 days.
Many companies have sought to raise capital to accumulate more cryptocurrencies, and been rewarded with an increase to their share prices.
American Bitcoin was originally called American Data Centers — initially a wholly owned subsidiary of Dominari Holdings — but rebranded in late March in a joint venture with another miner, Hut 8, to develop bitcoin mining and a strategic reserve of the token. Miners race each other to validate blocks of new transactions in bitcoin and the winner is paid with fresh bitcoin.
Shares in Gryphon Digital Mining rose as much as 350 per cent in morning trade in New York. Eric Trump, who co-founded and backed American Bitcoin alongside his brother Don Jr, will stay on with the enlarged company as chief strategy officer.
The announcement “bring[s] us closer to offering every investor access to a purpose-built platform engineered for scale and long-term value creation in what we believe is one of the most important asset classes of our time”, said Eric Trump.
Company bosses have been inspired by MicroStrategy, the business software group whose share price has rocketed as it has tapped equity markets for the funds to turn itself into the world’s largest corporate purchaser of bitcoin.
Brandon Lutnick, son of US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, last month said he would launch a listed bitcoin acquisition vehicle in partnership with SoftBank and Tether. Its pro forma enterprise value is around $11bn, more than double the value of the 42,000 bitcoin it will hold.
Sol Strategies, a Canadian-listed company, and Upexi on Nasdaq also both raised capital last month to invest in tokens linked to Solana, the blockchain widely used to operate memecoins. Both companies’ share prices have more than tripled since their announcements.
David Bailey, BTC’s chief executive and co-founder, was a driving force in persuading President Trump to speak at his conference in July last year, in which Trump set out many of the promises that won him backing from top crypto executives. KindlyMD shares soared 375 per cent on the news.
“Traditional finance and Bitcoin-native markets are converging. The securitisation of Bitcoin will redraw the world’s economic map,” Bailey said. “Nakamoto’s vision is to bring bitcoin to the centre of global capital markets, packaging it into equity, debt, preferred shares, and new hybrid structures that every investor can understand and own.”
The president’s backing of various crypto ventures has drawn fresh scrutiny in recent weeks.
A small group of traders earned an almost $100mn windfall by buying Melania Trump’s cryptocurrency token in the minutes before it was made public, an analysis by the Financial Times found.