Shares in Eric Trump’s crypto mining business lost more than half their value in less than 30 minutes on Tuesday.
The nosedive of American Bitcoin Corp, which triggered repeated trading halts, followed the steep decline of many cryptocurrencies and crypto-linked companies into what some observers are calling the onset of a “crypto winter”. Bitcoin’s value has fallen sharply since the start of October and erased a year of large gains.
Shares in American Bitcoin, which trades as ABTC, dropped to $1.90 after closing a day earlier at $2.39. The stock was previously at the lower level in May, before peaking at $9.31 on Sept 9 and then falling 78% to today’s trading value.
Eric Trump, the president’s second son, claimed last month on X that the Texas-based crypto miner handles 2% of the world’s bitcoin supply.
“I truly believe we are building one the greatest crypto companies anywhere on earth,” he said, rhetorically following in his father’s footsteps.
The abrupt decline in value of ABTC comes amid a broad selloff in the digital asset market. Bitcoin has plunged more than 30% from a 6 October peak of $126,272 a bitcoin to $92,133. Analysts at Deutsche Bank said last week that $1tn in value has been wiped off the crypto market globally since then.
American Bitcoin, which was created out of another company, Hut 8 Corp, earlier this year, reported third-quarter net income of $3.5m on revenue of $64.2m in November, Bloomberg reported.
Eric Trump’s crypto mining venture is only one part of the Trump family’s crypto-linked family business, which started in 2022 with the launch of an NFT, or non-fungible token. The Trump family launched the crypto firm World Liberty Financial in 2024 and a cryptocurrency that bears the family name, $Trump, in 2025.
Like American Bitcoin, other Donald Trump-affiliated crypto ventures are in the tank, including WLFI, a token of World Liberty Financial, which has dropped in value from 26 cents in early September to about 16 cents.
The family fortune has benefited richly from the crypto ventures. Bloomberg estimates the family fortune at $7.7bn in September, but the decline in crypto values has pulled it down to $6.7bn.
As president, Trump has signed an executive order to support the growth of the digital asset industry and establish a regulatory framework and appointed crypto-friendly officials to regulatory positions. He was for years a crypto sceptic, calling it variously “not money” and “based on thin air”, but he reconsidered the controversial asset class during his second presidential campaign and became the first major US presidential candidate to accept donations in cryptocurrency.
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Shares in the Trump’s social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which started acquiring bitcoin this year, are trading at around $11, down from $42 in early February.
Late last month, 41 year-old Eric appeared undaunted by the fall in crypto values.
“What a great buying opportunity,” he told Bloomberg. “People who buy dips and embrace volatility will be the ultimate winners. I have never been more bullish on the future of cryptocurrency and the modernization of the financial system.”
