The Trumps promote a new crypto venture: Bitcoin mining

Miami Herald

6 hours ago

On a Wall Street conference call in April, Eric Trump made a pitch for the newest venture in his family's rapidly expanding cryptocurrency empire.
Trump, the president's second son, said he was joining forces with the crypto firm Hut 8 to start a company focused on bitcoin mining, the business of running energy-guzzling machines to generate new coins.
Bitcoin mining is a notoriously difficult industry. But in the pitch, Trump made clear that the policies of his father's administration would give the new company, American Bitcoin, a 'competitive advantage.'
'We're doing it in America with a government that's dedicated to low-cost energy,' he said, later adding, 'We've got the best energy policy in this country. That policy is only getting better.'
Virtually every aspect of the Trump family's business portfolio is fraught with conflicts of interest that have blurred the boundary between government and industry. The debut of American Bitcoin, which is set to merge with a publicly traded company later this year, has heightened those concerns, introducing new ethical questions and pulling the Trumps even deeper into crypto, a business the White House has aggressively championed.
President Donald Trump is financially intertwined with two other crypto ventures -- a so-called meme coin created by a longtime business partner, and a separate company, World Liberty Financial, that he and his sons founded before the election. At the same time, he has ended a yearslong enforcement campaign against crypto companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission and vowed to sign legislation that would advance the industry's priorities.
Now his family is seeking to profit from a branch of the industry tied directly to bitcoin, a famously volatile asset that has seen its price surge based on the president's pronouncements. Eric Trump serves as chief strategy officer for American Bitcoin. A business entity he formed with his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., controls 20% of the new company.
Over the past month, the Trump brothers have embarked on a promotional tour, trumpeting American Bitcoin at high-profile corporate conferences in Las Vegas and Toronto, where a giant company banner hung over the convention hall.
The new venture could soon become an important source of capital for the Trump family. American Bitcoin has a stash of 215 bitcoin, worth about $22.5 million at current prices, with plans to accumulate more. And once the company's shares become available on Wall Street, it will offer another avenue for traders to invest in a Trump entity.
'They're doing this because they want to make money,' said Rep. Maxine Waters of California, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. 'In so many ways, it's a conflict.'
In the crypto world, mining serves a vital purpose. A central appeal of bitcoin is that it allows people to transfer money without a bank overseeing the exchange. Instead, a loose network of computers across the globe run calculations that verify every transaction -- a process known as 'mining' because the computers are rewarded for that work with newly generated bitcoin.
The computing power necessary to run these machines is enormous. The constant whirring of bitcoin miners has prompted noise complaints in states like Arkansas, where mining facilities have popped up near small communities. For years, environmental groups have argued that the energy-intensive practices of miners have contributed to climate change.
But the business is growing. Many prominent bitcoin mining companies have been traded on the public market for years, including MARA Holdings, Core Scientific and Riot Platforms, which are worth more than $12 billion combined.
All of those firms have profited from the Trump presidency.
This year, the White House announced the creation of a national bitcoin stockpile and other pro-crypto policies, propelling bitcoin to a record price. Mining companies could be poised for even bigger gains if the president follows through on his campaign promises to reduce the cost of energy sources that help power mining operations.
'With low energy cost, America will become the world's undisputed bitcoin mining powerhouse,' Trump declared on the campaign trail last year.
The Trump family's bitcoin business is also likely to intersect with trade policies dictated by the White House. In a recent securities filing, Gryphon Digital Mining, the firm chosen to merge with American Bitcoin, warned that tariffs could hinder the new company's efforts to 'import equipment at levels that are cost effective.'
The majority of bitcoin mining firms buy machines from Chinese providers, said Fred Thiel, CEO of MARA, a publicly traded mining firm.
'I do find it rather comical that American Bitcoin is running all Chinese equipment,' Thiel said.
The White House maintains that Trump has no conflicts of interest, noting that his assets have been placed in a trust managed by his children. In a text message, Eric Trump said he was 'incredibly proud' of American Bitcoin. 'We're mining the American dream!' he wrote.
American Bitcoin's leaders have said Eric Trump is not acting as an extension of his father's administration. He is a 'private businessman for sure' and 'not related to anything on the political side,' Mike Ho, the company's executive chair, said at a conference last month.
A spokesperson for Hut 8, Gautier Lemyze-Young, said in a statement that Trump's role in the company was to provide 'commercial acumen.'
'Like every industry and company in the United States, we stand to benefit from the administration's pro-business policies,' the statement said.
Eric Trump, 41, has spent most of his career in real estate. But lately, bitcoin has 'truly become a love of mine,' he said in April.
At the Las Vegas conference, Trump recounted a formative conversation with Michael Saylor, co-founder of Strategy, a publicly traded software firm that has accumulated tens of billions of dollars of bitcoin.
About a year ago, he recalled, Saylor told him that he should 'take $2 billion out of Mar-a-Lago right now' and 'go long bitcoin.'
Trump did not mortgage his father's Florida club. But in recent months, he has become the face of the family's crypto ventures, traveling the world to promote World Liberty Financial.
In February, an investment firm that Eric Trump helps run, Dominari Holdings, announced the creation of a business entity called American Data Centers. Six weeks later, American Data Centers joined with Hut 8 to establish American Bitcoin. A presentation on the new venture's website called Trump a 'strategic amplifier' with 'exceptional network reach.'
The company's unveiling took place at a delicate moment. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump had heavily endorsed bitcoin, writing on Truth Social that mining firms would help the United States become 'ENERGY DOMINANT!!!'
But like many businesses, the bitcoin mining industry was plunged into uncertainty this year, when the White House announced 145% tariffs on China, as well as import taxes targeting dozens of other countries. The market for a crucial type of hardware used in bitcoin mining is dominated by Bitmain, a Chinese manufacturer, according to Stephen Glagola, a mining analyst at JonesTrading.
Hut 8 was among the likely casualties of the tariffs. A subsidiary of the company has a deal with Bitmain to purchase as much as $320 million of the Chinese firm's mining machinery, according to securities filings. It's possible some of those machines had arrived in the United States before the tariffs were issued. But a recent filing suggested that not all the supplies had been delivered and that the deal's official price tag did not include any 'applicable tariffs.'
'That does imply there might be some tariff impact,' Glagola said.
Bitmain did not respond to requests for comment, and Hut 8 did not address detailed questions about the hardware deal. Lemyze-Young, the Hut 8 spokesperson, said the company sources 'some equipment and materials overseas, including China' and complies with tariffs.
In the end, the president rolled back the Chinese tariffs. That same day, his sons announced that American Bitcoin would pursue a public offering.
There is no evidence that the company's reliance on Bitmain's machines played any role in the tariff debate. But the announcements vividly illustrated how the Trumps' business interests are intertwined with policies set by the White House.
None of this appears to have deterred Eric Trump. At the Las Vegas conference in May, he took the stage alongside his older brother and predicted that bitcoin would reach a price of at least $170,000 by next year.
'We have a president who loves this industry and is behind this industry 100%,' he said. 'And guys, I'm telling you, we as a family could not be more excited about this.'
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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