Eric Trump's Bitcoin Bet Loses $600M as Competitors Cash In on AI Boom

American Bitcoin Corp's share price hit an all-time low on Wednesday, erasing over $600 million from Eric Trump's stake in the company. This decline comes as competitors that have pivoted to AI infrastructure have seen their shares surge, with some averaging more than 60% gains this year.

The company co-founded by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. launched in September 2025 and peaked at $139.65 just five trading days later. However, since then, the market has shifted towards AI data centers, with companies like Riot Platforms, Cipher Digital, MARA Holdings, and TeraWulf announcing deals to expand into high-performance compute infrastructure.

American Bitcoin's power, sites, and day-to-day mining operations are all run through Hut 8 Corp under exclusive service agreements. This means that Hut 8 has the optionality to move towards AI data centers, which it has done by rebranding itself around power infrastructure and multibillion-dollar AI data center leases. Its shares have more than doubled this year.

Chef Mike Ho argued on the Q1 earnings call that competitors shifting towards AI are actually helping American Bitcoin by reducing mining difficulty. He stated, 'We're seeing hundreds of megawatts from the leading public miners shift towards AI, which resulted in the network difficulty dropping about 6% this quarter.'

The company posted a $118.2 million operating loss in Q1 after marking down its Bitcoin treasury by $117.2 million. Despite this, it still bought another 500 BTC on Monday. Eric Trump said on a recent podcast that selling would require circumstances 'beyond catastrophic.' He also stated at the Bitcoin Conference 2026 in Las Vegas, 'We are in the greatest period in the history of crypto. Just hold on guys, just hold on.'