American Bitcoin, a bitcoin mining and treasury company backed by President Trump's sons Eric and Donald Jr., listed on the Nasdaq on Wednesday morning under the ticker symbol ABTC.
It's the second crypto venture listing for the Trump brothers this week.
"Our Nasdaq debut marks a historic milestone in bringing Bitcoin into the core of U.S. capital markets and advancing our mission to make America the undisputed leader of the global Bitcoin economy," Eric Trump, American Bitcoin’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, said in a press release statement.
First launched as a subsidiary of publicly traded bitcoin mining firm Hut 8 (HUT), American Bitcoin began trading at $6.90 per share through an all-stock merger with Gryphon Digital Mining (GRYP).
The stock surged as much as 90% in its first hour of trading before settling back. Its was up over 40% by 11 am New York time.
American Bitcoin shareholders, including Eric Trump, his brother Donald Trump Jr., and Hut 8, own 98% of the company, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"By combining Bitcoin mining, opportunistic market purchases, and the backing of Hut 8's energy and digital infrastructure, we have created a vehicle designed to drive rapid, efficient Bitcoin-per-share growth," American Bitcoin executive chair and Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot said in a statement.
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rose Wednesday morning to $111,500 per coin. It's up 19% year to date and has traded between $108,00 and $123,000 for the past two months.
The listing kicks off the second major event the Trump brothers have headlined this week in bringing crypto to the capital markets.
On Monday, the token for a crypto venture called World Liberty Financial (WLFI-USD), which has ties to Donald Trump's family, listed on crypto exchanges.
The token's price spiked and then fell on major crypto exchanges, a fairly common reaction for small and newer crypto tokens. It fell roughly 5% Wednesday and is currently the 27th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, according to Coinmarketcap.
Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric as well as Baron, were all named initial co-founders of the project though the president retired from the role once taking office, according to World Liberty's website.
In exchange for promotion the Trump family, including the president, control a little under a quarter of all World Liberty tokens (22.5 billion) through a shell corporation known as DT Marks DEFI LLC.
At current market prices, those holdings are worth $4.8 billion, making World Liberty tokens one of the Trump family's most valuable assets.
The shell company gets a large share of trading revenue from these tokens, “75 percent of $WLFI token sale proceeds after deduction of agreed reserves, expenses and other amounts," according to World Liberty's initial plan document. Other World Liberty executives including CEO Zack Witkoff, who is son of Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, also receive a portion of those proceeds.
The Trump family's financial ties to crypto, which now spans everything from World Liberty tokens to the president's official meme coin (TRUMP) as well as various partnerships and product offerings by his namesake media company, Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT), have drawn serious attention.
Crypto is "probably the most rewarding venture of my entire life," Eric Trump said last week before a bitcoin conference in Hong Kong.
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