Bitcoin mining, I realized, was really ultimately an energy business, and if you really understood energy well and can operate really efficient data centers and for the cost and opex, you could make money no matter what, as long as Bitcoin wasn't going to zero. And so my entrance into the space was more of a risk-mitigated way to get in. And then ever since joining and learning more, I mean, now obviously I'm a Bitcoin maxi and love what Bitcoin stands for. I think the idea that people can truly control their own wealth, you have a true store of value that you're not just getting hyperinflation against, and at this point, I think has passed the test of time and that adoption across the world.
Now, I was talking to someone earlier and I was like, it's not only going to be a store of value for people living on Earth. When Elon is successful getting us all to Mars, it's literally going to be a store of value for the whole solar system. And so I think that's what's extremely exciting. Hut 8 has become a really big business where we're focusing on energy infrastructure. We own power plants, we own data centers, and we own a massive Bitcoin mining business. And so we thought it was time to spin that business out and give shareholders who want a pure exposure some of the best exposure. And we'll talk about American Bitcoin in a moment. And then for Hut 8 to be that pure energy infrastructure company of the next decade. And so what we see Hut 8 as is a business that is able to really curate an electron, be able to power next-generation technologies to push humanity forward.
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Welcome back to the Bitcoin Economy. We're here in Hong Kong with Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8 and also representative of American Bitcoin. Asher, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Great place, great venue to connect.
So, Bitcoin Asia has been, I think, amazing so far. We're half a morning in. There's 20,000 people. There was 5,000 last year. So massive explosion in Bitcoin interest on the Asian continent. So Asher, we're excited to sit down with you today. Would love to kind of get a background a little bit on your Bitcoin story. You're obviously, I would say, famous in the industry for, you know, being the CEO of Hut 8, but let's also weave into American Bitcoin. Like, what are you guys doing there? How are you accumulating? But first, want to kind of start out, why do you even care about Bitcoin? Why is it important to you? What makes you passionate about putting your career into that?
So I actually joined the ecosystem, I would say, from a kind of a non-traditional, more contrarian route. When we started a company called US Bitcoin Corp that merged into Hut 8, and then I became CEO afterwards, I was actually nervous starting a crypto company, right? And I think the background was I'd come from much more traditional businesses, and I was telling Mike, my co-founder, I'm like, I don't know if I want to go into the crypto space. And when we dove deeper, like I actually found a different way of entering the ecosystem where Bitcoin mining, I realized, was really ultimately an energy business. And if you really understood energy well and can operate really efficient data centers and for the cost and opex, you could make money no matter what as long as Bitcoin wasn't going to zero. And so my entrance into the space was more of a risk-mitigated way to get in. And then ever since joining and learning more, I mean, now obviously I'm a Bitcoin maxi and love what Bitcoin stands for. I think the idea that people can truly control their own wealth, you have a true store of value that you're not just getting hyperinflation against. And at this point, I think has passed the test of time and that adoption across the world.
Now, I was talking to someone earlier and I was like, it's not only going to be a store of value for people living on Earth. When Elon is successful getting us all to Mars, it's literally going to be a store of value for the whole solar system. And so I think that's what's extremely exciting. Hut 8 has become a really big business where we're focusing on energy infrastructure. We own power plants, we own data centers, and we own a massive Bitcoin mining business. And so we thought it was time to spin that business out and give shareholders who want a pure exposure some of the best exposure, and we'll talk about American Bitcoin in a moment, and then for Hut 8 to be that pure energy infrastructure company of the next decade. And so what we see Hut 8 as is a business that is able to really curate an electron, be able to power next-generation technologies to push humanity forward. And so whether that be Bitcoin and securing the Bitcoin blockchain, whether that be AI compute, and or any other advanced technologies, is really being at that intersection of energy and technology.
And today I'm also the executive chairman of American Bitcoin. And the idea there is, look, shareholders bought mining companies and bought treasury companies, I think, for a very similar reason. It's, can I get a yield and can I get a levered exposure to the underlying asset? Otherwise, I would just buy Bitcoin or buy an ETF. And I think due to how these companies have been structured, we thought that you could actually make the best of both worlds and create a Bitcoin accumulation vehicle. And when it's the right time to invest in mining, you can start mining Bitcoin at a 50% discount to buying it at the market, but it's not always the right time to invest in mining. And then at this other time is when capital is cheap to raise to buy Bitcoin, that's great. If you could take on cheap dollars and buy Bitcoin at a higher appreciation, that's amazing. Capital is not always cheap either. So the ability to ebb and flow between these different strategies and be able to say, we'll buy Bitcoin at the market if we have really cheap cost of capital, and we'll mine Bitcoin at a 50% discount if we have really strong fundamentals. We thought that that was a winning strategy, and obviously Eric Trump did as well, and Donald Trump Jr. And so we came together and formed American Bitcoin from that business. And something I was telling someone earlier today as well is, so we merged into Hut 8 and then I became CEO. I found out recently Hut 8 was actually the first public company to own Bitcoin on the balance sheet as a business, and so that's super exciting as well. Yeah, it's a big... I haven't shared that with anyone. I found that out recently from some of the early founders of Hut 8.
So super fascinating on the side of how you've evolved, and we've been privy to the conversation with a lot of investors where either capital's locked up in an IRA or they're in an international market where they can't actually buy Bitcoin directly. And so a lot of them, you know, Bitcoin mining stocks have been that exposure that they're looking for. But then now you have all of these Bitcoin treasury companies, and you have everything that Michael Saylor's doing with financial engineering with his preferred stocks and, you know, raising debt. And big investors are now... I think it's super fascinating that you're switching into like, hey, this is what the market is telling us. This is what investors can wrap their heads around and simplifying it. So instead of thinking of Bitcoin mining as a very complex investment, you're stripping out American Bitcoin. So it's like, hey, here's your pure play, just invest in this, and then you can continue operating on the mining business as itself. Before we get into American Bitcoin specifically, would love to follow up on a question on Hut 8 and exposure to, you know, compute AI. It's obviously been a big interest for Bitcoin mining companies. What's been Hut 8's foray into the space?
