By Vicky Ge Huang

The president's two oldest sons are investing in a bitcoin-mining company, adding to the Trump family's expanding portfolio of cryptocurrency businesses.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.'s American Data Centers will merge with and take a 20% stake in American Bitcoin, a mining operation majority-owned by Hut 8, the publicly traded crypto-infrastructure company. Together, they aim to create the world's largest miner of the digital currency, with designs on building its own "bitcoin reserve."

In a matter of months, the Trumps started a decentralized-finance, or DeFi, project called World Liberty Financial, said their social-media company would invest in bitcoin and other digital assets, launched meme coins to capitalize on the popularity of the president and his wife and announced plans to issue a World Liberty dollar-backed stablecoin. And in his return to the White House, President Trump has said he aims to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the world."

The digital networks that comprise the cryptocurrency markets have offered the Trumps an ideal complement to their other family business: real estate, Eric Trump told The Wall Street Journal.

"We are a hard-asset family. I'm a hard-asset guy," said Eric Trump, who will serve as American Bitcoin's chief strategy officer. "My entire life has been spent building things, and I don't think there is ever a better hedge against all of that than the true digital assets."

American Data Centers was launched in February by Eric Trump, his brother Donald Jr. and Dominari, a small investment firm that recently appointed the Trump brothers as advisers.

As part of the deal, Hut 8 will shift nearly 61,000 of its specialized bitcoin-mining machines to American Bitcoin in exchange for an 80% ownership in the new entity. The companies said no cash changed hands in the deal.

Eric Trump said American Bitcoin, which aims to go public, will remain a separate venture from the Trump Organization, the family real-estate empire he runs. But World Liberty, the DeFi platform Eric Trump called his "whole heart and soul" might collaborate with the bitcoin-mining operation in the future, he said.

American Bitcoin's executives said their plans to mine and stockpile bitcoin for their own reserve are unrelated to the U.S. strategic crypto reserve that President Trump established earlier this month with an executive order.

Bitcoin, the world's most-popular digital asset, is created by computer servers that solve complex equations, unlocking, or "mining" new tokens.

The business of mining new bitcoin has grown more challenging as new companies have sprung up to capitalize on rising prices and the number of unmined tokens has dwindled. Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, capped the digital currency's supply at 21 million, and more than 90% of those tokens have already been released. Critics also raised concerns about the environmental impact of bitcoin mining, pointing to the massive amounts of energy required to run mining operations.

Some critics also said they were concerned that the Trumps' recent investments in crypto pose conflicts of interest, given Donald Trump's return to the White House.

"At least in the last term, it was all golf courses and hotels, whereas now he's getting into crypto, which could have a systemic effect on the economy," said Richard Painter, a former ethics attorney for President George W. Bush. "This is an area where conflicts of interest, whether the Trump family or anybody else, could have devastating consequences."

Hut 8, based in Miami, will host American Bitcoin's mining machines at its data centers and include the new company's results in its financial statements.

Asher Genoot, Hut 8's chief executive, said the company's ability to secure cheap energy, build low-cost data centers and mine bitcoin at a low cost will help differentiate American Bitcoin from competitors. Hut 8 owns 11 data centers.

"There is still 100-plus years of bitcoin mining left, and bitcoin continues to appreciate," Genoot said. "Being the lowest-cost bitcoin miner is how you will continue to manage through that volatility and being able to be at scale."

Eric Trump said American Bitcoin and other U.S.-based miners will benefit from the recent decline in energy prices.

"That is what puts bitcoiners in this country," he said. "It is going to put them ahead of everybody because we actually have a government that wants to see low-cost energy."

Mike Ho, chief strategy officer of Hut 8, will serve as executive chairman of American Bitcoin. Matt Prusak, former chief commercial officer of Hut 8, will become the company's CEO.

Venture-capital investors Justin Mateen, co-founder of Tinder, and Michael Broukhim, co-founder of FabFitFun, an e-commerce startup, will join Hut 8's Ho and Genoot as the board of directors for American Bitcoin.

Write to Vicky Ge Huang at vicky.huang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 31, 2025 17:03 ET (21:03 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.