Trump family-backed American Bitcoin's costs dropped 23% in Q1 as mining industry pivots to AI

Markets Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Trump family-backed American Bitcoin's costs dropped 23% in Q1 as mining industry pivots to AI The Trump family-linked miner cut its cost per Bitcoin to roughly $36,200 from $46,900 in Q4 2025, putting it among the lowest-cost public mining operations at a moment when most of its peers are toning down business. By Shaurya Malwa | Edited by Omkar Godbole Updated May 7, 2026, 6:53 a.m. Published May 7, 2026, 6:21 a.m. 2 min read Make preferred on What to know : American Bitcoin, the Trump brothers’ mining venture, cut its cost to mine one bitcoin by 23 percent in the first quarter to about $36,200, far below the industry average of roughly $80,000. The company posted an $81.8 million net loss largely due to mark-to-market declines in bitcoin prices, but said its core mining operations were profitable after excluding non-cash revaluations. American Bitcoin increased its bitcoin holdings by 30 percent to about 7,021 BTC, even as many rival public miners sell coins and pivot toward AI and high-performance computing, and its shares remain nearly 90 percent below their 2025 peak. The Trump brothers' bitcoin mining venture cut its cost per coin by nearly a quarter in three months, going against industry trends. American Bitcoin (ABTC) said in a Wednesday filing that its cost to mine one bitcoin fell to roughly $36,200 in the first quarter, a 23% drop from $46,900 in Q4 2025. That puts it materially below the publicly listed miner average of around $80,000 per bitcoin in late 2025, as CoinDesk reported , and inside the band where mining at current bitcoin prices remains genuinely profitable rather than a managed loss. The improvement came from spreading higher production volume across a stable fixed-cost base, plus what management called "continued energy pricing discipline." The Drumheller site in Alberta, which was switched on and began running miners in late March, added roughly 3.05 exahash of computing power, a measure of how many guesses per second the mining hardware can make to find new bitcoin. Total fleet capacity hit 28.1 exahash by quarter-end, with around 89,000 mining machines running. As such, American Bitcoin posted an $81.8 million net loss for the quarter, with most of that driven by mark-to-market accounting on its bitcoin holdings as the price dropped roughly 22% over the period. Revenue came in at $62.1 million versus $78.3 million in Q4 2025, reflecting a lower average revenue per coin mined of $76,000 versus $100,000. Strip out the non-cash bitcoin revaluation, however, and the underlying mining business was profitable. The company added 1,620 bitcoin to its strategic reserve in the quarter, taking its holdings to roughly 7,021 BTC, a 30% increase in three months. Of that, 817 came from mining and 803 from open-market treasury purchases. American Bitcoin is now the 16th largest publicly traded bitcoin holder globally. What makes the quarter notable structurally is the contrast with the rest of the cohort. Public miners have collectively pivoted toward AI and high-performance computing, signing more than $70 billion in cumulative contracts and reducing their bitcoin treasuries by over 15,000 BTC since late 2024 to fund the transition. ABTC shares were down about 1% in after-hours trading and remain nearly 90% below their September 2025 listing peak of around $1.25. American Bitcoin More For You Bitcoin lenders say institutions want crypto credit to look more like TradFi By Sam Reynolds , AI Boost | Edited by Shaurya Malwa 29 minutes ago At Consensus 2026 in Miami, executives from Two Prime, Ledn and Lygos Finance said institutional borrowers increasingly prioritize custody, transparency and standardized lending structures over complex DeFi products after the crypto credit collapses of 2022. What to know : Institutional bitcoin lenders are shifting away from complex DeFi structures toward more traditional finance-style practices emphasizing transparency, standardized contracts and clear risk controls. Panelists at Consensus 2026 said institutional borrowers increasingly scrutinize where bitcoin collateral is stored and whether lenders rehypothecate assets, reflecting lessons from the 2022 crypto lending collapses. 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