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Eric Trump's American Bitcoin Lists on NASDAQ: 'The Best Is Yet to Come' | Markets Outlook
00:16:41
The latest price moves and insights with Eric Trump and Asher Genoot.
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- [00:00]
A
We're really excited about what we're doing. I think we're going to grow this company. We're in it to win this race, Jen. We are absolutely in it to win this race. I think you know that about our family and I put my heart and soul into this, this company as is Asher. And today marks an amazing milestone and the best is definitely yet to come.
- [00:20]
B
American Bitcoin made its NASDAQ debut today trading under the ticker abtc. Following the completion of its reverse merger with Griffin Digital Mining. The stock saw a dynamic and high volume open and is currently trading around $9.50. I'm Jen Senazi and this is Markets Outlook on CoinDesk. Joining me now to discuss the launch and the company strategy are American Bitcoin's co founder and Chief Strategy officer Eric Trump and its Executive Chairman Asher Ganute. Hello, how are you Jen? I'm doing well, thanks. But I imagine the two of you are probably doing a little bit better today.
- [00:54]
A
We are doing awfully good right now to say the least. We had, we had an amazing debut ticker symbol abtc. We're building one of the greatest, you know, mining companies anywhere. I really, really believe that my, my heart, soul. We've put our life over the last six months into this project and, and to see debut on, on the NASDAQ today is absolutely amazing, extremely exciting and I, I think it's, it's clearly being well received based on, you know, what you just mentioned to, to the audience.
- [01:16]
B
Asher, how are you feeling today?
- [01:18]
C
Unbelievable demand. I mean I think we're halted three to four times for the trading coming out of the gate and so really fortunate. I think what this shows is there's real demand for creating a bitcoin accumulation vehicle that has a multi strategied approach to accumulating bitcoin. Whether that's mining bitcoin at a 50% discount to buying in the spot market or being able to access low cost capital to acquire an asset that's been appreciating at over 70% over the last decade. So I think we're really fortunate for the support on this first day of trading. And this is just the start for us. In building a great business.
- [01:54]
B
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- [02:40]
C
Asher, the key here is how do we accumulate and grow Bitcoin per share? And what that means is if a shareholder owns one Bitcoin or one Bitcoin through an etf, they'll always just own that one Bitcoin of exposure by us being able to have our mining business, our accumulation and treasury business. The goal is to increase the amount of Bitcoin that they own through the shares that they own. And so I think American Bitcoin is probably one of the best position to acquire Bitcoin at the most competitive rates. And so that includes we have large scale facilities that are able to mine Bitcoin. And then the financials that we've come out with, we're mining bitcoin all in for around 57, $8,000 a Bitcoin and our cost of energy is around $37,000 in Bitcoin. So that's extremely competitive. Then we're able to raise capital in terms of equity, convertible notes at 0123% interest and be able to buy an asset that's been appreciating, as I mentioned, at about a 70% CAGR over the last decade. And so having this multi pronged approach allows us to grow, but also to be conservative. And because what's really important in owning this asset class is being able to manage through volatility, especially the bear cycles. And so having a risk first approach, meanwhile being able to grow at the pace that we did. I mean we launched this company April 1st, it's been five months since we launched in Republic today. And so extremely excited, extremely grateful for the team and all of their hard work. And as I mentioned a little bit earlier, this is just the start in our scale and growth ambitions.
- [04:12]
B
A really fast timeline there. I want to talk about that in just a second. But Eric, I want to come back to you. I know your older brother is also involved in this business, of course your family involved in various different crypto projects. Why Bitcoin mining? Why Bitcoin Treasury? Why is this something that you want to lend your name, your expertise and your brain to day in and day out?
- [04:31]
A
Well, I'm really only involved in two, two crypto projects. But I believe in it more than I believe in just about anything. You know, one is obviously American bitcoin and the other is World Liberty Financial and they operate on either ends of the spectrum. Bitcoin is the greatest store of value. I'm a real estate developer. I understand hard assets as well as any. And bitcoin obviously solves every single one of the problems that hard assets have now. And listen, we're big believers obviously in hard assets or no one that owns more hotels and golf course and everything than us. But you know, you have an asset that's liquid 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you have an asset that's lowball, you have an asset that can't burn down, you have an asset that doesn't need to be managed, but you have an asset that's not subject to fraud and abuse. We got into this business, I tell the story almost every time I speak about cryptocurrency and really bitcoin. We got into this business because we were canceled by every single bank and we realized how fragile the financial system was. And all of a sudden I started realizing the power of digital assets. I started realizing the advantages of digital assets not just here in the US but around the world. I really, truly believe that bitcoin is the greatest store of value. I believe in the years to come, I think you're going to have bitcoin hit a million dollars. I see every single major financial institution, every Fortune 500 company, every major family office, everybody wants bitcoin. I also see it, you know, becoming easier obviously to get for the first time based on companies like American Bitcoin who's now going public on, on the NASDAQ exchanges. People can for the first time have direct exposure in equity swarm to the, you know, to the asset class. It's always been very hard for people to otherwise purchase. And so we're really excited about what we're doing. I think we're going to grow this company. We're in it to win this race, Jen. We are absolutely in it to win this race. I think you know that about our family. And I put my heart and soul into this, this company asset as Asher and today marks an amazing milestone and, and the best is definitely yet to come.
- [06:16]
B
Eric, you just mentioned $1 million bitcoin there. When do you think we're going to get to a million dollar bitcoin and what needs to happen for us to see that kind of price action?
- [06:25]
A
Listen, I have about A thousand analogies for this. But when you see Schwab sort of custody bitcoin, when you see, you know, fidelity, you know, I clicked on a 401k that I had the other day, you know, to check it, and the first thing that came up was a little box which was, do you want to create a digital fidelity digital asset wallet? I said yes. And about one second later, a little, you know, a little while, it popped up in the corner of my screen. The point that I'm making with that analogy is you just put trillions of dollars and potentially hundreds of millions of people, because they're one of the largest into the digital asset space, right? That's happening with all the banks every single day. A year ago, Jamie Dimon was saying, you know, we're not going to touch cryptocurrency. And now they're probably running at digital assets faster than anyone you BlackRock's doing. You see, as I mentioned, what Schwab's doing. You see what nation states are doing. You see what states in this country are doing. Look what, look what Texas just voted on, right? In their, in their legislature literally being able to custody bitcoin on their balance sheets, right? So, so all of a sudden you've got all these cracks in the dam that are breaking. The people who get in now are. The people who are, are getting in early. I believe that with, with all of my soul. And this is a global asset. This is an asset that everybody wants. This is an asset. It's probably the only asset in the world that has limited supply. There's 21 million. There will never be another one. Unlike gold, unlike other commodities. And I'm just watching it from afar as for the first time, the capital markets really have access to it or getting access to it. And so I think cryptocurrency is in its infancy. And I think the trajectory of bitcoin and of digital assets is going to be parabolic. And I really think we're going to have one of the greatest companies in the ecosystem. And that was launched obviously minutes ago.
- [08:00]
B
Eric, you mentioned your family being debanked. If that didn't happen, do you think you'd be sitting here as a co founder of a bitcoin mining and treasury company today?
- [08:09]
A
Zero chance, Jen, Honestly, zero chance. You know, Michael Saylor was good friend. I've known him for almost 25 years. And he always said, eric, buy bitcoin. And I said, michael, if I, if I can't feel it, if I can't see it, you know, if I Can't touch it. I. I want nothing to do with it. And then all of a sudden, I start getting debanked. It's the same very people that were debanking, all the people that you know and all the people actually know and all the people I know and all the people who believed in modern finance and modern digital assets. And I realized how damn smart those people were. They're brilliant people who want to change the system for the better, not just here in the US but around the world. And so, no, the debanking was 100% the catalyst of us getting into digital assets. I often talk about the law of unintended consequences. I can tell you this is one of them. But what's more exciting, Jen, is us. There's probably no more American family. I am as patriotic as it comes. I believe red, white and blue to be able to do American bitcoin ABTC here in America, using American energy, using American data centers, which obviously Asher can get into as, you know, chairman of, of hut 8. But this is an American initiative. Everything we do, we need to lead the way in. And we have the best energy supplies, we have the best natural resources, we have the best ability to mine. We have the best legislation now for cryptocurrency. And the entire world is following the United States of America. And that's a release because I could tell you seven months ago that was not the case.
- [09:28]
B
Asher, let's talk about that timeline now. You mentioned it from April to September. That is remarkably fast for a company to go public. Talk to me about the objective here. How critical was it for you to become a publicly traded company before the end of 2025?
- [09:45]
C
And remember, not just from when we wanted to go public, from starting and announcing, launching the business to going public.
- [09:51]
A
Right.
- [09:52]
C
I think there's some record out there. I don't know what it is, but it's definitely out there. And again, huge kudos to the team and all the work that went through in order to do so. Why being public is important for American Bitcoin is twofold. The first is the idea of building the business was to create a company that could give everyday Americans access to bitcoin exposure in the best way possible. Where we're not only giving them bitcoin exposure like an etf, but we're mining bitcoin at a discount to the market. Were also acquiring bitcoin with low cost of capital. And so that was the key was how do we actually democratize and give people access to be able to own bitcoin? Through American Bitcoin and abtc. The second was access to the capital markets and the financial markets. The US has the best financial markets in the world, the most liquid, the most deep and the most versatile. And so being able to have access to those financial markets, continue to accelerate growth and continue to grow. When we launched American Bitcoin we said that hut it had carved out 10 exit Hasric machines. We've continued to grow and we're excited to announce the growth that we've had since then. And we've continued to amass bitcoin. I think the last bitcoin we had was 80 something Bitcoin. The most recent reporting was over 2,000 and we're continuing to grow up at a rapid rate. I think that 2000 number that's out there that puts us as 25th in the world on terms of stack of Bitcoin. We'll be going up those charts very, very quickly.
- [11:17]
B
Talk to us a little bit about the relationship between Hut 8 and American Bitcoin.
- [11:22]
C
It's very key to the mining business. We really took a first principles approach. American Bitcoin gets vertically integrated pure economics of bitcoin mining without the capex needed to invest into the data center and the energy infrastructure and without the need to hire hundreds of people to run and build out the data centers and operate them. And so American Bitcoin has this ability to be a very lean team, very low fixed expenses relative to variable and being able to invest in the machines that actually generate the Bitcoin and not the other infrastructure that the lower generated asset. We're able to do that because hut is a big shareholder in American Bitcoin. So there's that strategic relationship which is really hard to replicate. And the reason we did it is American Bitcoin is not just a bitcoin mining company. It's not just another treasury company. It's not just a financial player and ecosystem play. It's the best of all of those worlds. We've truly taken every piece of each of those businesses and said what allows them to be great, let's combine them into one large scale bitcoin accumulator. And as Eric and I have said in other conversations, we look for American Bitcoin to truly be the best bitcoin company that's ever been created.
- [12:34]
B
Eric, I want to come back to you and talk strategy a little bit. We're we, we know about the mining business, we know about the treasury business. Are you planning to expand beyond that? You know, I've talked to some other treasury companies that are looking at, you know, bitcoin products. Bitcoin defi. There are other miners, hut 8 is one of them that are diversifying into AI. What's your outlook there?
- [12:58]
A
No, we want to be very core to bitcoin. I mean, listen, the ecosystem of bitcoin is. Is expanding every single day. People are using it as payment rails every day. The utility of something that was always considered digital gold. Right? That's the kind of common analogy. The payment rails and kind of the tentacles of bitcoin are expanding every single day. I can tell you just a few days ago from one of the big exchanges, maybe the biggest exchange on earth, I saw some products that are coming out related to bitcoin in that ecosystem. And I think that just provides more value, more utility for what Bitcoin is, how it serves the people. Hundreds of millions of dollars are getting transferred in single transactions for, um, for pennies. I know of one that's very close to our heart, within the company itself, where, you know, it got transferred for, I think it was 67 cents, in a matter of seconds, almost $200 million worth of Bitcoin. And so the utility of that is, is. Is astronomical. Compare that to the. The swift wire transfer system in this country or around the world, and you're going to get crushed by fees, by foreign exchange, by, you know, a hundred other people trying to put their fingers in it. So the utility of bitcoin is there, but the store of value, it's what people want all around the world to literally. I was just in Hong Kong. I was speaking at the bitcoin conference. You couldn't see the end of the, you know, the room. There's 20,000 people there in a society where kind of all the cracks haven't quite formed. I mean, Asia wants it. Obviously, there have been certain government controls that are breaking down every single day that allow people to invest in individual assets. But it's all of Asia that wants bitcoin. It's all of the Middle east that wants bitcoin. It's all of Central and South America that wants bitcoin. It's every fortune 500. It's the wealthiest families. Everybody is sprinting toward owning bitcoin because, again, it's one of the great stores of value. So I've never been more bullish on anything in my life. I think we're. We're clearly at the infancy, and I think it's a great upward trajectory from here.
- [14:41]
B
I read a quote from you while you were in Hong Kong. You said, American bitcoin mines about 3% of the world's bitcoin every single day. Is this today or is this a future target?
- [14:52]
C
No. So you'll see in some of the public disclosures we have rapid growth that we are currently in the process of in addition to continued growth. And so today we're mining a lot of bitcoin. And I think in the coming days we'll share more on definitive exahash we have online and exactly how much we're mining. But if you go look at the public disclosures, over the course of the last couple of months, we've been cranking as a team and really been scaling and growing the amount of bitcoin and the amount of compute that we have mining those bitcoin.
- [15:22]
B
Asher, Eric, it was a pleasure chatting with you today. Congratulations. And just before I let you go, Eric, you said earlier that Michael Saylor is a friend. Friend of yours. How does he feel to have another competitor join the race?
- [15:34]
A
So. So Michael is one of the greatest guys you'll ever meet. And. And honestly, and I say this all the time, I've never had somebody try and convince me to get into the space so much. I've never seen that ever in my life where somebody's trying to convince other smart people to get into the space that they're operating in. But you know, this is one of those worlds where a high tide lifts all boats and. And that's clearly the case. I mean, Michael has been our greatest champion. And by the way, Michael is the. The og, the goat of bitcoin. I mean, there's very few like the man. He's been one of the greatest spokespeople in an industry that until recently didn't have great spokespeople. But Michael is a phenomenal friend. He's an inspiration to all of us. He knows Asher incredibly well and he's been the greatest cheerleader for. For what we are we're doing and beyond supportive and, and just an amazing human being. So honestly, massive thanks to Michael. He's inspired a lot of us and we have obviously a little bit of a different flair on this. Knowing that we can mine for 50 cent dollars and we can always dollar cost average down, but he's an inspiration and a wonderful man.
- [16:34]
B
Guys, thanks very much.
- [16:36]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [16:37]
A
Thanks.