Trump crypto venture raises $220 million for bitcoin mining

A cryptocurrency venture associated with President Donald Trump’s family raised $220 million to buy Bitcoin and digital asset mining equipment, according to a filing Monday.

American Bitcoin, a company whose backers include Trump’s son Eric Trump, issued new shares to private investors on Friday. Some of the equity, worth about $10 million, was sold for Bitcoin rather than dollars, according to the filing by American Bitcoin’s majority owner Hut 8 Corp.

Trump’s sons have been working on multiple crypto-related projects since their father took office, as the administration loosens curbs on the industry. Eric Trump and his brother Donald Trump Jr. are positioning themselves to profit from rising virtual asset prices — even while their father works toward his promise of transforming America into “the crypto capital of the world.” Companies and investors around the world have proved eager to enlist the Trumps as advisers and boost projects tied to them. 

American Bitcoin is one of the many corporate efforts bringing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into the world of publicly traded companies. The company was spun up from a recently created unit at a Trump-advised investment bank. Hut 8 handed over its mining equipment to the fledgling company in exchange for an 80% stake. Now Hut 8 is planning to take American Bitcoin public by merging it with another public company, Gryphon Digital Mining Inc.

Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive process where specialized computers validate virtual transactions and earn a reward for their work in the form of newly-minted digital tokens.

Hut 8 also recently made plans to expand to Dubai, a move that is unrelated to its involvement with American Bitcoin, a representative for the company said on Monday. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new share offering.