Will the prices end the golden age of Bitcoin exploitation in America?
After China prohibited crypto in the summer of 2021, a large part of the mining industry was forced to move – in Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada and other countries with inexpensive electricity. The largest beneficiary of this exodus, however, has been the United States, which in the past four years has exceeded all other countries in the world in terms of hashrate (which means that more bitcoin is produced in the United States than elsewhere).
However, President Donald Trump’s pricing policies, unveiled on April 2, but have stopped at the moment, threatened to increase the costs of the ASIC, the extremely powerful computers used to produce bitcoin. Only a handful of companies know how to build these ASICs, and the majority of their manufacturing facilities are located in Southeast Asia, in countries facing around 10% to 50% of prices.
Although new taxes probably do not make prohibitive ways for American minors importing new machines, they will probably slow the expansion of industry in the country, Coindesk in Coindesk told Coindesk.
“The United States will still be the main source of Hashrate worldwide in the foreseeable future, but its global domination will probably make Bitcoin Mining become a much more global business,” said Taras Kulyk, CEO of the Bitcoin Synteq Bitcoin Material Society.
“We will certainly see each other Hashrate Plateau in terms of relative growth,” he added. “Other countries are part of space.
The prices are just a much larger piece of a puzzle. Other factors, such as the enormous request for new data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) and the decreasing number of American locations ideal for companies to set up mining installations, probably have a greater impact on the calculations of a minor when it comes to choosing a jurisdiction in which to operate.
Operations based on the United States are always, in the short term, capable of drawing on a robust secondary market in order to acquire mining platforms without paying prices. In the long term, ASIC manufacturers take action to produce their machines on American soil.
Consensus seems to be that, far from destroying Bitcoin extraction in the United States, prices are simply promising as a new variable that the hyper-competitive industry must face.
Biting the ball
The prices mainly presented a challenge to minors in April because of their sudden and their steep. Minors and logistics companies rushed to push ASIC shipments to the United States before the implementation of the policy in order to avoid paying substantial taxes – only for the White House to postpone the deadline for a few months.
Now, however, mining companies have adapted to the idea that ASIC imported will cost at least 10% more than before. But there is uncertainty as to whether it is the new normal. The Trump administration is still in full commercial negotiation, and the judicial system has not yet provided a final decision on the legality of its new policies.
“We will probably take a lot of time to have a final response on the prices – at least until the Supreme Court weighs,” Lauren Lin, equipment manager of the Bitcoin hardware company, Luxor Technology, in an interview. “We expect it to take a few months, or even more than a year.”
In the meantime, Luxor (who also manages a company annoying the freight) sees no signs of panic among its customers, although there has been an increase in questions on how to prepare Washington’s policy changes, according to Lin. The ASIC secondary market (where American companies can no longer acquire used and cheaper machines), she said. In other words, minors walk.
But there are new difficulties, such as the fact that prices also have an impact on imported electrical equipment. Transformers, for example, are mainly manufactured abroad and were already difficult to obtain before April. The prices have only aggravated the situation. This was a greater source of frustration for minors than prices on ASICs, according to a person working for a cryptographic commercial organization.
Overall, the initial prices of the White House on the Nations of Southeast Asia should only be considered as a starting point for a policy that will probably evolve over time, said Jeff Laberge, head of capital markets and Bitcoin Miner Bitdeer strategic, told Coindesk in an interview. “We are quite optimistic that there will be a reasonable result at the end of this,” he said.
Made in America
The ASIC market of $ 30 billion is dominated by Bitmain, a Chinese company whose machines feed approximately 80% of the Bitcoin hashrate, according to Theinermag. Its competitors include Microbt, Canaan and Bitdeer.
These companies make the vast majority of their ASIC in Malaysia, Thailand and China, although Microbt already has at least one installation in Pennsylvania, and Bitmain announced in December that it launched a new production chain in the United States. Canaan has also completed an American test, which means that it now has the capacity to build ASIC in the country if it chooses it.
The Trump administration’s prices achieve one of their declared objectives (to stimulate American industry) in that they encourage these ASIC manufacturers to increase their operations in the country.
Canaan told Coindesk that, although production in the United States is expensive, it brings the advantages of being geographically closer to their customers and to reduce the risk of the supply chain. The firm said it is currently exploring the possibility of associating with American manufacturers existing for its own ends. Microbt also seeks means to avoid prices by accelerating American production.
Bitdeer, a new technologically advanced player on the ASIC scene, considers the situation as an opportunity to seize holders’ market shares. “We would like to migrate as much as possible in the United States,” said Laberge. “It will take a while to speed up this.”
“Being a manufacturer and minor gives us a huge optionality, because we will always have a house for the platforms we produce, whether in our own data centers or with a third party,” he added. Bitdeer has mining operations in Texas and Ohio, among other places.
The heavy goods vehicle, Bitmain, has not communicated new plans to accelerate American production since the prices were announced in April. But the company will probably want to demonstrate that it is based in the United States in accordance with the Trump administration objectives, said Kulyk de Synteq. Bitmain did not respond to a request for comments.
In all cases, consensus seems to be that the expansion of production capacity in the United States will be a slow and expensive process.
“That we are playing our manufacturing of machines in the United States depends on our ability to reduce costs as well as the demand of our American customers. If the demand of American customers is low, manufacturing here does not make sense,” Canaan told Coindesk. “In addition, if prices on the products of Southeast Asia [end up being] Low, so we don’t necessarily need to strengthen our manufacturing capacities in the United States. »»
The end of a golden age?
Miners therefore quickly adapt to the new reality of prices, and ASIC manufacturers seem ready to speed up local production. However, the American hashrate of Bitcoin (worth more than 40% of Global Hashrate) continues to grow as fast as in the past four years.
On the one hand, prices have an impact. Bitcoin Mining is a highly competitive industry, and companies are always looking for means to reduce costs. If the choice is between the opening of a new mining installation in Texas or Ontario, the prices can swing the decision in favor of the latter.
More importantly, however, it is increasingly difficult to find new American locations that meet the requirements necessary to run new Bitcoin extraction operations. “Most low fruits have been picked up in the United States,” said Laberge.
Without forgetting that competition has become more intense. The data centers dedicated to high performance IT (HPC) appear throughout the country in order to extend the capacities of the AI, and the main players in the industry – Microsoft, Meta, Google – are in depth. If a site is suitable for both mining and HPC, minors do not win an auction war.
They will not necessarily want either. HPC data centers are more complex and capital to build, but they also provide much higher profits; This has led a number of Bitcoin extraction companies to diversify in AI.
“HPC Chasing Electrons is the main theme of the next two to 10 years,” Kulyk told Coindesk. “Bitcoin minors certainly have targets on their backs for acquisition and consolidation in space … As a sector, they will probably be eaten or absorbed in the overall digital calculation.”
This phenomenon is likely to remain contained in the United States due to the technical sophistication required to build and execute HPC centers. Political considerations also play in a large role, given the arms race for the current AI between the United States and China. In other words, bitcoin minors outside the United States will not be affected by the rapid growth of the HPC industry in the same way.
For minors based in the United States, the path to follow may no longer develop in terms of megawatts, but in terms of efficiency, according to Laberge.
“If you are looking at the world hashrate right now … The majority of platforms have an effectiveness of 30 joules by Terahash (J / TH) or more,” he said. By way of comparison, the latest generation machines of Bitmain and Bitdeer are closer to 10 d / TH in efficiency. “In today’s economy, it is at best marginally profitable.”
“All these platforms must be refreshed,” he continued. “We see this as an addressable market of $ 4 to 6 billion a year for the next three to five years.”
Correction (June 24, 2025, 16:30 UTC): Canaan does not seek to build its own manufacturing facilities based in the United States, as previously indicated by the article, but is considering the idea of associating with existing American manufacturers.
