The Bitcoin mining firm co-founded by Eric and Donald Trump Jr .saw its stock price tank moments after portions of its shares were unlocked for sale.
On Tuesday, American Bitcoin — listed as ABTC — saw its shares lose nearly 50 percent in value within an hour of the market's opening. The company's price dropped to a low of $1.80 from its previous closing price of $3.58. It did rebound a bit throughout the day and closed at $2.19, marking a 38 percent daily decline, according to The Block.
"Today our pre-merger private placement shares unlocked — these early investors are freely available to cash in on their profits for the first time, which is why we will see volatility," Eric Trump wrote in a post on X.
In September, American Bitcoin merged with Gryphon Digital Mining, allowing it to be traded on the Nasdaq.
Eric Trump also said that he was not selling any of his shares, insisting that the company's fundamentals are "virtually unmatched."
Overall, ABTC shares are down 80 percent from their record high of $9.40 in September.
“This week may stay volatile as shares settle,” American Bitcoin president Matt Prusak said on X. “Personally, I’ve lived through brutal drawdowns before.”
In addition to American Bitcoin, the Trump family also has its hands in other digital investments, including meme coins and World Liberty Financial, which was co-founded by President Donald Trump.
Critics of the Trumps' foray into the crypto space have argued that the companies provide a way for wealthy people to curry favor with the White House in a way that is not traceable — and open the administration to foreign influence.
Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin said in a House Judiciary Committee report published in November that "Trump’s so-called ‘pro-crypto agenda’ is just one more Trump family self-enrichment plan, built on pay-to-play deals and corrupt foreign interests seeking secret channels of access and influence.”
The report argues that Trump has "used his office to enrich himself and his family—with crypto holdings worth as much as $11.6 billion and income of more than $800 million from the sale of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone."
Protesters demonstrated against alleged influence-peddling outside Trump National Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia, in May. The president was at the venue hosting a dinner for the top 220 holders of his cryptocurrency.
But crypto is nothing if not volatile, and even the Trump family cannot escape that reality.
The president's family fortune has fallen by about $1 billion in a matter of months due to steep declines across the cryptocurrency market, according to a new report.
The Trumps' net worth is around $6.7 billion, down from $7.7 billion in September, according to Bloomberg News.
This drop stems primarily from the family’s holdings in the crypto, with a Trump-branded meme coin, Eric Trump’s Bitcoin mining efforts through American Bitcoin and Truth Social — which is largely tied up in Bitcoin — all experiencing substantial financial setbacks.
The losses are the result of a broader cypto crash that has eliminated more than $1 trillion in value worldwide.
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