Inside The Trump-Backed Bitcoin Empire: How Michael Ho Plans To Build America's Largest Digital Gold Treasury

While millions flock to Bitcoin ETFs, Michael Ho is executing what a "Wall Street hack" — and he’s doing it alongside Eric and Donald Trump Jr. The CEO of American Bitcoin (NASDAQ:ABTC) and Chief Strategy Officer at Hut8 Mining, joined forces with the Trump family to build a new kind of crypto powerhouse. Following its September 2025 Nasdaq debut under the ticker ABTC, after a high-profile merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, American Bitcoin is using public market mechanics to accumulate Bitcoin at what Michael Ho describes at a "massive discount." Hut 8 holds a majority 80% stake in American Bitcoin, with the Trump family, including Eric and Donald Jr., alongside legacy shareholders owning the remaining 20%. Currently American Bitcoin holds 5,044 Bitcoins CRYPTO: BTC), ranking 21st among corporate holders.

In this interview Michael Ho explains his "accumulator" model — how the company leverages its stock premium to buy more Bitcoin, why he's targeting a $25 trillion untapped fixed-income market, and his audacious plan to become one of the top five Bitcoin holders in the world.

Anna: Michael Ho, CEO of American Bitcoin. You’ve deeply cooperated with the Trump family. Can you tell us about your background and how you got into crypto?

Michael: I bought my first Bitcoin back in 2013, probably on an exchange that isn’t around anymore, and got into Bitcoin mining back in 2014. Bitcoin mining back then looked very different from the institutional data centers that we build today. Back in 2014, it was going around to our local electronic stores, buying graphic cards, gaming graphic cards, and putting together our first iterations of our mining rigs. I think one of our ASICs that we use today is probably equivalent to maybe 100,000 of those early day GPUs.

Anna: So what led you into crypto mining?

Michael: I’ve been a serial entrepreneur most of my life… I always loved cars, so I built a business out of currency arbitrage, import-export currency arbitrage, using vehicles or cars as the vehicle of medium transfer. And that was actually what led me to crypto mining, was my appreciation for arbitrage businesses. Understanding that Bitcoin mining really at the core is just energy arbitrage. Your biggest cost is your cost of energy. So naturally, what led me into the Bitcoin mining space was this appreciation to find the lowest cost, the lowest source, the cheapest sources of energy globally and essentially turn those electrons into digital currency.

Anna: Were you doing it purely for the profits, or did you see the value in Bitcoin as financial freedom?

Michael: No, it’s just when we look at Bitcoin, we understood very early on that Bitcoin empowers people to have financial freedom. We’re very fortunate in North America, we have access to banking, we have a stable currency. But when you look at Bitcoin adoption globally, the highest adoption rates are actually in the third world countries where they have central banks that abuse their money printing system, where someone in Zimbabwe, that gets their paycheck, by the time they can deposit into their bank account, if they have access to a bank account, they’ve already lost a portion of their paycheck because of how high inflation is.

Anna: How did the partnership with the Trump family come together?

Michael: It all came together very quickly. We’ve had a ton of mutual contacts, a ton of mutual friends, and we were talking here and there, but it wasn’t until we really met in person that my co-founder and I met with Eric and Don Jr…. there was a clear synergy in how Eric and Don Jr. built the Trump organization. It’s a real estate business. It’s infrastructure, it’s tangible. And when you look at what we do on the Bitcoin mining side, it’s not much different than a real estate company because it’s data centers as the real estate essentially.

They were working on American data centers. We got talking because when you look at the data center space, energy is very scarce. What we do really well is we have a deep pipeline of energy assets… When you look for a new interconnection request or to be able to access that type of power, in many cases, in many states, it’s a multi-year process. So how the conversation came together is we’ve already done a ton of legwork and if we combine forces, we have an equation here that is one plus one equals 11, and combining forces allow us to collectively move forward faster together.

Anna: Some skeptics say this partnership is just for political access.

Michael: We don’t even think about politics… We’re just very fortunate to be able to build and expand our business in America, where the previous administration was thinking about implementing additional taxes specifically just for Bitcoin miners… I think we’re in such a favorable environment where the administration understands the benefit of Bitcoin mining and what that means for energy development and the energy story, as well as grid balancing… but also just overall the benefit of proliferating crypto rails, which enables more dollars to be pulled, more buyers of US dollars through stablecoins, which is a natural buyer for US treasuries.

Anna: You went public recently via stock-for-stock merger with Gryphon Digital Mining. Why become a public company?

Michael: You won’t ever hear about a Bitcoin treasury company as a private company. The reason that someone should consider buying a treasury or an accumulator such as American Bitcoin over buying spots or an ETF of Bitcoin is you’re betting that the management team will, through active management, increase your underlying Bitcoin ownership per share. When you buy an ETF or spot, you will only ever own a ratio of one, less the fees. But when you buy an actively managed treasury company or an accumulator like us… you’re betting on the active management of being able to monetize some of the intangibles of being a public company. And what I mean by that is you can monetize low cost equity when you’re trading at a premium. You essentially can issue a dollar of dilution of equity, when you’re trading at a premium for two, three, four dollars back in Bitcoin.

Anna: With so many crypto treasury companies, what’s your advantage?

Michael: I think overall, we’re just focused on how we can increase our Bitcoin ownership per share for our shareholders. All of the strategies, all of our approaches, we have one easy and one simple goal, and that is everything we implement is to increase the Bitcoin ownership per share. A very exciting space that we’re looking forward to is the fixed income markets… This is a massively untapped capital pool. As American Bitcoin grows our treasury, as we increase our stack, we’ll be able to leverage some of our collateral to design products for the fixed income markets.

Anna: You plan to raise $2.1 billion. What's the goal?

Michael: Our aspirations are to be one of the largest holders of bitcoin. But I think that we will most likely be able to be a top 10, maybe a top five holder over the course of the next few quarters or a year.

Anna: How does the macro environment influence Bitcoin?

Michael: I think overall when you look at the macro markets, with the markets pricing in future cuts… we’re moving in the right direction. And I think ultimately as interest rates come down, Bitcoin will be a net benefactor of those lower rates… More importantly, when you look at the supply dynamics of Bitcoin, over 70% of all the Bitcoins haven’t been moved in over a year… the actual floating supply of Bitcoin is only around 30%, which is just under 6 million Bitcoins. Now, when you look at the supply constraints, relative to the inflows, the institutional buyers, BlackRock’s IBIT is already almost at $70.08 billion. That’s a lot of capital coming in. And you look at the treasury companies, the accumulators, buying supply and taking that out of the circulating float. I think from just the supply dynamics, Bitcoin is very well positioned to see much higher prices.

Anna: What's your Bitcoin price prediction?

Michael: I think over the course of the next 18 months, Bitcoin is again going much higher with the dynamics that I just explained.

Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.