American Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency firm backed by the Trump family, plans to go public.
The company announced Monday (May 12) that it had agreed to merge with Gryphon Digital Mining. Upon closing, the combined company, operating under the American Bitcoin brand and led by the company’s directors, will trade on the Nasdaq.
“Our vision for American Bitcoin is to create the most investable Bitcoin accumulation platform in the market,” Eric Trump, American Bitcoin’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, said in a news release. “Today’s announcement marks an important milestone in that journey, bringing us closer to offering every investor access to a purpose-built platform engineered for scale and long-term value creation in what we believe is one of the most important asset classes of our time.”
Taking the company public is crucial toward expanding the business at the scale and speed it envisions, added Asher Genoot, board member of American Bitcoin and CEO of Hut 8, which launched the crypto firm earlier this year.
“Time-to-market was a critical factor, and this transaction enables an efficient path to public markets by combining with an entity that is structurally aligned with American Bitcoin’s mining-focused launch strategy,” Genoot said.
The planned merger comes as the Trump family’s crypto ties are stirring political discontent in Washington. For example, a bill to promote stablecoins was blocked in the U.S. Senate last week over political disagreements and controversy surrounding President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures.
The bill fell short of the required votes following pushback from Democrats who were seeking a provision that would block Trump and other senior officials from profiting from crypto ventures while in office.
As PYMNTS wrote, many Democrats still see stablecoin regulation as essential for consumer protection. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who voted against the bill despite earlier acknowledging major progress in talks, said he hoped the issue could be revived.
Also last week, a group of Senate Democrats wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pam Bondi seeking answers about ties between the Trump family’s digital asset ventures related to cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating money laundering and sanctions laws.
“Our concerns about Binance’s compliance obligations are even more pressing given recent reports that the company is using the Trump family’s stablecoin to partner with foreign investment companies,” the senators wrote.
