Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, lots of news in crypto today. Greyscale Investments filed publicly for an IPO. It's the latest crypto link company to test public markets under an administration. More open to digital assets from more on crypto and bitcoin and bitcoin mining specifically joining us now and name familiar to our audience, Eric Trump is the co founder and chief strategy officer of American Bitcoin. It's a publicly traded bitcoin mining and treasury company. It's got
a market cap around four point four billion dollars. The company started trading on the NASDAC back on September third, when it merged with a microcap shares. It a high on September ninth. They're down around forty seven percent since then. Eric, of course, also the executive vice president of the Trump Organization. He joins us from Florida. Eric, good to have you on the program again. How are you God, It's great
to be on. So if somebody wants exposure to bitcoin, why would they do that through American Bitcoin rather than just buying bitcoin outright on an exchange or even through an ETF.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean, if you go out and you buy bitcoin on ETF or you buy it on an exchange, you kind of have one to one bitcoin. Right. You go out and you buy one bitcoin, you're always going to have one bitcoin. Our entire ethos is increasing bitcoin per share. Right now, every day we're mining bitcoin, we're mining bitcoint at roughly fifty percent of spot prices of bitcoin, so roughly about fifty six thousand dollars per bitcoin. That's what we're able to mine at. We're able to mind because
we have the best facilities anywhere on Earth. We've got some of the cheapest energy anywhere on Earth. We do it in America, we do it in West Texas. So right now, our average costs to produce a bitcoin is roughly fifty six thousand dollars and we're mining bitcoin twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. By doing that, you're able to increase bitcoin per share, right And that's the ultimate metric that we chase every single day. How do you increase the amount of bitcoin you have per
share you have of stock? And I think we can do that clearly. If you go buy on a one to one basis, you don't have that ability to do And that's the one metric that we track every single day, and that's the one metric that we try and improve every single day.
And we've done a healing job, guys, I mean we you.
Know, this public was founded on March thirteenth, I'm sorry, March thirty first, roughly five months later, five months and three days to be exact, we were listed on the Nasdaq under ABTC. We're less than three months old having been listed, and we're already well for past four thousand bitcoin that have either mined or that we've accumulated, making us the twenty fifth largest BTC public treasury company in the world, and we're a climbing that ladder very quickly
every single day. So I couldn't be more proud of what we've been able to accomplish. And you know, everything that you said, I think you mentioned four and a half billion dollar market cap, and again we've been listed for less than three months and growing, you know, growing by by, you know, kind of with lightning speed.
You mentioned the cheapest source of energy in mining that bitcoin. Last time we spoke back in September, we had a discussion about wind energy that that powers some of this mining. Is it still wind that's powering the mining operations for American bitcoin.
There's resources.
But certainly when there was a defunct wind farm, you know, the guys over a Hot eight, which is our sister company, were able to lock into incredibly cheap energy because frankly, it wasn't being utilized, because it wasn't being pumped into the grid, and lock into a very cheap contract for a very long period of time. And so we've got unbelievable renewable energy that we're using to mine our our bitcoin. But you're gonna see a lot of other energy sources.
Come on. I mean, we're on the the energy revolution in this country. I think you guys know that better than anybody. Look at oil, look gas, you know the policies are working. Look at these SMRs. Look at you know kind of fusion reactions.
Well well well, well well wait a minute, Eric, because SMRs, I mean, we we do know. We're on it every day. And these small modular reactors, none of them are up and running. And anybody we talk to you who understands the nuclear industry says it it will take a few years to get them up and running.
Guys, absolutely, don't don't don't don't think that I'm saying that they're up and running by by any means. What I'm saying is we're in the heyday, you know of power and power exploration in this country. Right now you have an administration that's held bent on making sure or this country has incredibly cheap power. Well, no, that's really interesting.
Let me just jump in there, because we've done a deep analysis into the cost of electricity in twenty twenty five. Electricity cost to pen far more on where you're located, and a lot of it has to do with the AI build out and the cost of those data centers and tapping into the networks. You talk about Texas, I'm curious what you're paying per megawat an hour in Houston right now, it's twenty five dollars. It has gone up a lot since twenty twenty. If you go back to
twenty twenty, it was seventeen dollars per hour. I mean, you know, those elections. I don't want to get political, but those elections, I mean part of it was electricity prices that people Americans have had enough.
Caroly, you can't be serious, and honestly, I don't want to argue on Bloomberg.
It's not what I came here to do. I've got plenty of things to do in my daily life.
You had the last administration that had the greatest war on energy that we've ever seen in the country.
Right.
You had an administration that was literally shutting down boiling gas exploration daily.
They were shutting it down daily.
They were cutting every pipeline, they were stopping every pipeline from being built. I mean, which ones do you want me to name? I could go through a list of fifteen of them. In fact, it was Joe Biden's first executive order to shut down the Keystone pipeline. They shut down all permitting, they shut down all transmission of oil and gas. There was a war on energy in this
country the lights of which you've never seen before. You know, we went from being energy independent under my father, or we're exporting energy to countries all around the world, to being energy dependent under Joe Biden. Don't even don't even try and say, you know that we're not seeking the lowest cost energies. They had power plants that they were trying to build for a fifteen year period of time, nuclear power plants.
And guess what at the end of them.
Joe Biden's administration would turn them down and deny them the permits for nuclear energy. Right, my father is hell bent on making this country energy And the reason, hold on, please let me finish. The reason he's hell bent on it is if you track GDP, any GDP growth around the world, and you directly correlate that with energy costs, they're one hundred percent correlated. The lower your energy costs are for production of energy, the higher your GDP costs are.
We have to win the war on cryptocurrency. We have to win the war on AI. We have to win these for a national security.
We have to win these.
Because we're the United States of America and we're the number one superpower.
We must lead the way.
We need energy generation, and my father is hell bent of getting that through every single form, whether it's natural gas, and we're drilling, remember the slow maybe drill, And we're drilling again, and we're exploring again, and nuclear power plants are getting permits again, which was not happening. So please don't, please, please don't talk to me about affordability. When you had an administration that did everything they could to crush energy prices for a four year period of time.
Erica, I respect your position and opinion on this, but I also will say that the US is the largest oil producer that's out there. I want to go back to your company because on mining, we learned today that bitfarms, it's one of the largest cryptocurrency miners, set it plans to wind down those operations over the next two years focus on providing infrastructure to generate power for artificial intelligence applications.
We continue to see that a growing list of bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI and high performance compute services as profit margin shrink do in part to those falling prices of the tokens are the digital tokens that are out there.
Do you have any.
Plans for American bitcoin to pivot away from bitcoin mining into artificial intelligence?
Now the exact opposite. We're only going to ramp up. We're going to ramp up every single day. I mean, Carol, you mentioned falling prices. Let me just kind of hit on this one for you. You know, guess what bitcoin prices were exactly two years ago from today. I'll tell you because you would no, thirty six five hundred was the cost of a bitcoin two years ago we are up one hundred and eighty percent in a twenty five more
a month period the spot price of BTC. It's probably the number one performing asset you know, of any asset.
And this is this coming.
From a guy who believes in hard assets, right. I mean, I run one of the great real estate portfolios. Awhere in the world. Cryptocurrency is absolutely on fire. Cryptocurrency is taking on the world.
Well.
Bitcoin is up this year by about five percent, the S and P is up fifteen percent, the Nazek one hundreds up twenty percent, Gold is up percent this year.
No, I'm just do you want to reverse hold on, Carol? Do you want do you want to reverse that? I mean, do you want to go back two years? You want to go back three years? You want to go back five years, you want to go back ten years?
I had a diper smartly have gone up.
On average of about seventy percent a year year over year for the last ten year period of time. All I'm saying is, if you invested in BTC two years ago is probably the best investment you could have made. If you made invested in BTC five years ago, you know you're sitting on.
Infinite amounts of money.
Right, BTC has been probably the highest performing asset of the last decade. Right. And now also with BTC comes volatility, With crypto comes volatility.
Volatility is our friend.
Volatility is something that should be harnessed, right, and so I think bitcoin is going to continue to massively overperform the markets. Of course, you're going to have draw downs, right, I mean every cycle has draw downs. You're seeing you were talking about Navidia, you know in the intro clip to introducing me today, and how they're down four percent to this one large companies on Earth, if not the largest company on Earth, right, I mean that's down four percent.
You're going to have draw downs and things.
That's life. Now, look at the historical performance of an asset, and nothing has compared to the Bitcoin.
Totally understand markets the ups and downs, and sometimes the downs are an indication of either even moving down further. Hey, one thing I want to ask you is I think you're on with Bloomberg. Back in September, you owned about seven and a half percent of the company. Has that number change because it sounds I can hear your conviction. It sounds like it's a long term conviction. When it comes to the digital world and bitcoin in particular. So are you buying more shares that.
That number has not changed at all.
I have every share that that I started this company with, and I plan to for you know, a long time to come. I love it, I believe in it. I think the people that we're doing it with are the smartest people in the world. We've got some of the greatest energy contracts, We've got the most sophisticated facilities, and guys, what I'll tell you is, you know, I spend a lot of time all over the world. I think you know that from our real estate, you know, projects everywhere.
Everybody wants cryptocurrency. Everybody believes in cryptocurrency. Everybody's tremendously worried about their respective governments. Everybody's tremendously worried about their respective financial systems, especially when you leave the United States. You know, people in so many countries around the world, they get paid, you know, they may as well burn that paycheck because of inflation.
It absolutely kills.
Them all of a sudden, you know, kind of you know, Bitcoin is digital gold. People believe in it. It's great asset. It's an asset that can't be inflated. It's an asset. They'll only have twenty one million coins. Ever, you know, the price of gold ever went to forty thousand bucks an ounce. Guys, I would tear down this building and I would find gold in the columns. I'd find gold
in the concrete. Right, you're gonna you're gonna, you know, you're gonna dig deeper, and you're going to go farther, and you're gonna spend more money, you know, So you're never going to actually have caps supply.
With bitcoin, you have cap supply.
And I can tell you whether it's Asia, whether it's Middle East, whether it's South America. You know, there is a longingness you know, to treasury bitcoin, and you're seeing that from even some of the very biggest companies in the United States. They're putting it on their balance sheets in ways that they've never done before because they believe in digital assets and and they you know, they believe in the attributes of them, right, you know, And again, I'm a real estate guy.
I love assets.
But think about something that's you know, transferable twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Think about something that's global. Think about something that's easier to transport.
You do love assets, and you guys, your family is so entrenched obviously in real estate. You think Trump, you think real estate. But I'm just curious if you had to choose between owning real estate or bitcoin.
What would it be both? Both? No?
No, no, you have to choose. Come on, Eric, you're smart.
I grew up. I grew up when I was eleven years old on construction sites.
Right. I clearly love tangible assets and I believe in them, and I think bitcoin is is the greatest hedge towards those tangible assets. You know that there is what I will tell you is, in any place other than the
United States, I would probably take cryptocurrency. I mean, imagine if you lived in one of various South American countries or one of you know, various you know African kind of countries that that have instability where government can come in at any time and steal your house, steal your piece of property, steal your hotel. Right, you don't have a chance, you know, you don't. You don't have that
problem with bitcoin. You don't have that asset problem with the assets that's you know, that's that's literally qualified on Ledger twenty four hours a day. So there's there's a
real need for this asset class around the world. And by the way, even in the United States, I mean, guys, I became one of the most debanked persons, you know people, you know American history, for having never done anything wrong, you know, operating great golf courses, operating great residential buildings, condominium associations, hotels, right and and and all of that got pulled out from under me because my father happened to wear a hat. I wasn't a politician, I've never
been politician. I've never worked for the government. For wearing a hat that said make America great again, all of a sudden, I started getting canceled left and right. You know the interesting thing about crypto, you know, technology, blockchain, pain technology, digital assets, digital wallets, can't cancel them. You can't take them away, right, And that's a few little thing. And there there's a flight to safety. There's a flight to safety that a lot of people in America have
a harder time appreciating. Albeit when people see what happened to us, they can appreciate more. But a lot of people around the world can really appreciate. I think if you lived in a lot of the Asian countries, you'd appreciate it. I think if you live lived in a lot of places, and let me ask you, just say here in Africa, you probably appreciate that.
No, I understand what you're saying. And I think, you know, we've been talking about cryptocurrencies for a long time here at Bloomberg, and I think time will tell whether or not. Uh, this is something that becomes well entrenched within our financial system because at this point people are still buying things like stocks and bonds.
Uh, and believe it?
Do you believe it?
I do?
But what I wanted to ask you is, and I think it's something that we talked about in our planning called do you do you feel like you know? Tim asked about, you know, maybe the advantage of you know, buying into your company vers is maybe a micro strategy or something else. Do you feel like you guys do have an advantage because of your proximity to the White House?
And I asked this full disclosure. When we talk about Paramount's guidance, we say the same thing because we know that David Ellison certainly is looked upon favorably by the White House when it comes to maybe doing another acquisition. So do you think you have a little bit of an advantage?
Yeah, Carol, it's such a frustrating question.
Now, you know, my advantage is our our advantage with American Bitcoin is we can mine bigcoin and fifty cents on the dollar roughly, you know, and we're mining bitcoin every single day any other And by the way, Michael is a very close friend of mine, and there's no person in the world you know virtually that I respect more. He's an amazing human being, an incredible visionary and everything he's accomplished. Our advantage to mining bitcoin is every single day we mind a lot of bitcoin.
We do so for fifty cents on the dollar.
Go wen't evenother commodity you can do that with right every other treasury company virtually out there, they have to go buy bitcoin at the spot price at bitcoin that debt. I can effectively go out right now and mine bitcoin at fifty percent of that number. I can also go out and I can acquire bitcoin, and American Bitcoin can go out and acquire bitcoin.
At spot prices.
And guess what, as I do that, I can also yield manage down pricing, you know, based on the bitcoin that that we mind each and every day. Obviously, the amount that you can mine is somewhat finite, even though our mining operations are growing on a daily basis. But that's a great advantage that I believe we have. We can increase the amount of bitcoin for share of our shareholders, and we do, and that's why we're growing as quickly as we are. So I clearly believe in our strategy.
I'm really really proud that do.
You understand why?
You do?
Understand why we ask it?
Right?
I mean full disclosure like we try to be as I mean, Caroll.
So many of the questions here I've just been. I understand clearly where you stand, right, but you know it's not snow shock to me. I understand why you're asking the question. I also understand that I have absolutely nothing to do with the federal government. I want nothing to do with the federal government. I have no interaction with
the federal government when it comes to crypto policy. I stay in my own damn lane, and my lane is operating the greatest hospitality company on Earth, and operating company that I truly believe in with every ounce of my heart and soul, which is what we're doing with Bitcoin,
which again historically has been an incredible asset. Hey, Eric, So when I hear questions about how you know somebody could possibly argue that that Biden had better energy policies for the United States than the Donald Trump, like like, give me a give me a I.
Didn't argue that. I just you know, we are we are a data driven company, and so I look at data.
Give me data so perfect, Give me, give me the data. Give me one quantifiable metric where Joe Biden was a better energy president. Donald Trump, you.
Can't, well they just can't.
When you president on the on the first day of his term, cancel every pipeline, including the Keystone Xcel pipeline, which is why every gas pump in the United States of America had a little sticker on us saying I did that, And there's a picture of Joe Biden pointing to the price of gas. Please spare me this conversation. You've got some of the lowest gas prices in the history of our country. They're coming down every single day.
You've got an administration that are putting through permits for nuclear reactors like their pays, because we need it if we're going to be successful.
Based on all the metrics.
I gave you, No one can credibly tell me.
You know, as these guys build.
There's build wind farms in the middle of nowhere that aren't even plugged into the grid. I mean, and I say that with all due respect, Carol.
No, I know, I know, and I don't want to argue. I mean, but there's a reason that you know, WTI
crewed is below sixty dollars a barrel. And you know, you know, the oil giants will talk and they'll say, listen, we're only going to we're doing We're only going to do it if it makes sense, if the if the price of oil goes up, because there is you know, balance sheets, there's going to be a cost of drilling and doing exploration, and they're not going to do it unless the price of oil, whether the demand is there and as.
There is oil er, do you think any of that has anything to do with the transportation of oil? Right when you when you're shutting down pipelines every single day, you know what else is affecting price the fact that you can't move something that's naturally heavy, right, And that's what Joe Biden was doing. It was the biggest It was the biggest war on oil and gas, all for the purpose of creating you know, ev cars that the
consumers around this country did not want to buy. I mean, how many billions of dollars did they spend building four charging stations in the middle of absolutely nowhere. You know, under Pete bouja Jed your transportation sectary, who is completely competent.
All right, I don't want I don't want to get you political. But anyway, listen, in five years, what do you hope your company is just to wrap up? Where do you see its role?
Yeah, I'm glad we came back to this.
Thank you. I think we're going to create one of the great bigcoin companies anywhere in America.
We're sending the ladder very quickly. I think I mentioned that.
You know, we're under three months old, and you know we're a twenty fifth largest public bitcoin treasury company on all the lists, and we're sending that list very quickly. We just passed you and I very good friends of ours, the Winkle Bosses, who you know, they actually invested in American bitcoin and they're good friends of ours.
And it seems like every day we're kind of climbing another step up that ladder.
I think we're doing it well. I think we're doing which mendus heart and soul. I think we're doing it here in the United States of America. I think that's film rapic to this country. And you know, we need to lead the world in the financial you know, digital financial revolution. Bigcoin is clearly leading that charge right now based on market cap and and I'm very very proud of the company we're building and the speed of our growth right and I think we're going to do commendously well.
I'm sure all that financial execs too like this probably played into it, possibly as well as regulatory stuff when they were there at the White House. It's all coming at us. Hey, Eric, thank you so much, really appreciate it. We went around and around, and I'm glad we were able to cover a lot of ground. Eric Trump, co founder, chief strategy Officer of American Bitcoin in Executi, Vice President of the Trump Organization, joining us there in Florida,