Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the well-known Gemini founders and early Bitcoin adopters, have made an investment in a cryptocurrency mining operation that has links to the sons of former President Donald Trump, according to a statement from a company executive.
Asher Genoot, the CEO of Hut 8 Corp., revealed during a recent investor conference call that the Winklevoss twins participated in a private placement for American Bitcoin Corp., contributing an unspecified amount of Bitcoin. American Bitcoin was established earlier this year, combining Hut 8’s mining resources into a new entity backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
“We successfully completed an oversubscribed private placement, which included an investment from the Winklevoss brothers. They opted to invest using Bitcoin instead of traditional currency,” Genoot stated during the Thursday earnings announcement.
Neither the Winklevoss brothers nor Asher Genoot have immediately responded to inquiries from Decrypt regarding the exact quantity of Bitcoin invested by the Gemini co-founders.
American Bitcoin announced its plans to become a publicly traded company in May, shortly after finalizing an agreement to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange through a merger with Gryphon Digital Mining Inc. The transaction is structured as an all-stock deal. Earlier this summer, the company also procured Bitcoin valued at $2 billion as part of its strategic BTC treasury management.
The Winklevoss twins’ investment in American Bitcoin coincides with a period of increased profitability for Bitcoin mining enterprises. In July, collectively, Bitcoin mining firms experienced their best profit-generating month since the Bitcoin halving event in April 2024. This event, occurring every four years, automatically reduces the Bitcoin rewards allocated to miners.
According to analysts Reginald L. Smith and Charles Pearce from JP Morgan, “Ten out of the thirteen miners that we monitor outperformed the price appreciation of Bitcoin itself during the month,” as noted in a report released last week.
Bitcoin’s price surged to a record high of $122,838 in July, building upon gains achieved relatively steadily throughout the preceding two months. Since then, the cryptocurrency’s value has slightly decreased, currently trading approximately 4% below its peak value.
As of this writing, Bitcoin is valued at $117,453, reflecting a 2% increase over the last 24 hours, based on data provided by CoinGecko.