During Donald Trump's presidential election, he promised that “all” Bitcoin (BTC) should be “made in the US.” However, his new tariffs could hurt the US BTC mining industry.
BTC mining relies on specialized computers based on application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) specialized in Bitcoin hashing algorithms.
Bitmain and Microbt had begun installation of production lines in the US for the final Congress, but these machines are imported as they are primarily outside the US. However, these production lines still seem to rely on importing different components of the device.
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Historically, these machines were built in China, but after early tariffs during Trump's first term, production had moved to other countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia.
Currently, since Trump is targeting those and many other countries, it is possible that imports of both miners and components will be imported for production. Prices will rise.
Luxor Chief Operating Officer Ethan Vera claimed at the Mining Pod a few days ago that brokers and miners were chartering planes to rush mining equipment to the US before these tariffs were enacted.
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BTC mining is a highly competitive global industry, and incentives make it important for miners to find the jurisdiction with the lowest total cost. These costs include both the energy costs to operate the machines and the costs to acquire these machines in the first place.
If it becomes more expensive to acquire these machines in the US, those miners will compete by others in low-cost jurisdictions.
This was also an analysis of Hashrab Mining Chief Executive Jalan Mellard, who said, “If machine prices rise in the US, they could paradoxically decrease in other parts of the world.”
Interestingly, before these tariffs were finalized, Trump-affiliated global Liberty Financial signed a deal with HUT8 to launch American Bitcoin. HUT8 provided its ASIC to this venture, Avoid fixed tariffs immediately.
