American Bitcoin Corp. (ABTC) crossed 8,000 Bitcoin (BTC) this month, yet its stock trades more than 95% below its peak. The gap asks whether the Trump name or the business model is to blame.

The company keeps buying Bitcoin and reporting strong mining margins. Its shareholders, however, have watched the equity collapse since its September 2025 debut.

A Trump Premium that Inflated the Debut

The Trump connection gave American Bitcoin its launch. Eric Trump co-founded the firm and serves as chief strategy officer, while Donald Trump Jr. advises it. That branding drew heavy retail demand as the company merged with Gryphon Digital Mining.

It was listed on Nasdaq in September 2025. Forbes later reported that investors valued the firm at nearly $13.2 billion at its debut. It held only about $270 million of Bitcoin at the time.

The structure sat quietly behind the story. American Bitcoin is a majority-owned subsidiary of Hut 8, which holds roughly 80% after transferring its self-mining operations. The Trump family controls about 20%, and Eric Trump’s personal slice sits near 6%.

That same association cuts both ways. Data now puts the stock more than 95% below its peak.

The same Forbes report found retail holders lost about $500 million since the debut. Eric Trump’s own fortune, by contrast, rose about $90 million, since the founders bought in early and cheaply.

He dismissed the Forbes report as propaganda, yet no scandal or governance failure explains the collapse.

Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens

A Treasury that Grows as the Stock Sinks

Operationally, American Bitcoin has hit its marks. It mined 817 BTC in the first quarter, a company record. Margins held near 52% even as Bitcoin fell about 22%, the company reported.

Eric Trump says the fleet mines at a 47% discount to spot. Forbes disputed that math, pegging the all-in cost near $90,000 per coin after depreciation and overhead are factored in.

Yet the equity tells the opposite story. To fund that accumulation, the company leaned on share issuance, and its float ballooned. Each raise bought more coins but handed existing holders a thinner claim.

A 1-for-15 reverse split then cut the count from more than 1.09 billion shares to about 73 million. The move, effective in early July, aimed to keep ABTC above Nasdaq’s minimum bid price.

The math shows the strain. Satoshis Per Share rose about 20% in the first quarter, yet the share count kept climbing. A $117.2 million non-cash markdown on its Bitcoin drove a $118.2 million operating loss. CEO Mike Ho said the underlying business stayed profitable and that the firm did not sell a single coin.

That stance holds as it keeps buying Bitcoin through the slump. Eric Trump framed the 8,000 BTC milestone as vindication rather than a warning.

“Thrilled to announce American Bitcoin crossing the 8,000 BTC mark! … we continue to differentiate ourselves, mining at a 52% profit margin in Q1 and continually adding to our treasury, all while maintaining one of the lowest SG&A ratios in the industry … The stacking continues,” Eric Trump shared recently.

The AI Pivot American Bitcoin Refused

The wider market has moved on. Through 2026, rivals repurposed mining power for artificial intelligence, where margins looked richer. Stocks such as TeraWulf, IREN, and Hut 8, the majority owner, climbed as they leaned into AI infrastructure.

Others, including Riot, sold Bitcoin to fund the shift, while Empery Digital cut its holdings by nearly half. Their shares increasingly tracked AI demand rather than Bitcoin’s price.

American Bitcoin knows that trade well. It began in February 2025 as American Data Centers, a venture tied to the Trump-linked firm Dominari Holdings.

A month later, it pivoted to pure Bitcoin mining through the Hut 8 deal. In effect, it walked away from data centers just before the market began paying up for them.

The comparison it invites now cuts the wrong way. American Bitcoin’s hybrid model mines coins and buys more, echoing the MicroStrategy accumulation playbook now run by Strategy. Michael Saylor pioneered that approach in 2020, and for years his stock traded far above its Bitcoin.

Strategy’s own filings show 843,775 BTC today after withholding from selling any BTC last week. Yet even that premium has flipped to a discount, with the stock valued below its coins in mid-2026.

If the market has soured on the model’s pioneer, a smaller and diluted copy has little cover.

What the Disconnect Reveals

The evidence points to a hard bet in a shifting market, not broken trust. The Trump name inflated the debut, which made the correction look political. Yet the market now values American Bitcoin near $430 million, below the roughly $500 million of Bitcoin it holds.

The same repricing has humbled Strategy, the model’s own pioneer. What sank the stock was a diluting wager on Bitcoin that skipped the sector’s richest trade. Public shareholders absorbed the loss, while the venture’s insiders did not.

Источник: BeInCrypto