US Customs Ends Regulatory Hold-Up on Chinese Bitcoin Miners – Will This Impact BTC?

• The US authorities reportedly released thousands of Bitcoin mining equipment seized last year; however, tens of thousands of units are still stuck. 
• Several reasons have been given for the seizure, including the reports that they contained AI chips from a now-restricted chip company.

The US authorities have started releasing Chinese-made Bitcoin mining equipment that was seized last year. According to Taras Kulyk, the CEO and co-founder of crypto mining equipment broker Synteq Digital, thousands of pieces of equipment have been released. However, as many as 10,000 units are still stuck at various ports of entry.

The Details of the Seizure

For context, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized multiple imports of Antminer ASICs in November last year. According to our research, this operation occurred across multiple ports, including San Francisco and Detroit. Interestingly, the request was allegedly made by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Based on reports, these agencies were not targeting ASIC manufacturers like MicroBT or Canaan. Instead, they were focused on the latest series of ASIC miners from Bitmain – Bitmain’s Antminer S21 and T21 series. Other sources also disclosed that this equipment contained AI chips from Sophgo, a now restricted chip company.

Speaking on this, Luxor Technology’s Chief Operating Officer, Ethan Vera, disclosed that radio frequency emissions were spotted from the machines. Meanwhile, Kulyk believes that this was a deliberate ploy to disrupt the crypto market.

Blockspace’s Will Foxley has also explained that this move was part of the decision to onshore most of the sensitive industries around Silicon.

All these Bitcoin miners are using massive amounts of silicon, making massive amounts of units and importing them into the United States.

The implication was that American mining firms were prevented from expanding their ASIC chips, which ultimately limited Bitcoin’s hash rate. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has pledged to encourage local Bitcoin miners.

In one of his campaign messages last year, Trump pledged to make sure that the remaining Bitcoins are mined in the US. With this, an anti-mining activist and energy analyst, Alex de Vries, believes that Trump meant to say there would be less scrutiny for the Bitcoin mining industry in the country. Fascinatingly, some countries, including Russia, have already approved a bill to legalize Bitcoin mining, as noted in our earlier coverage.

Bitmain’s Ongoing Development and Bitcoin’s (BTC) Reaction

Amidst the backdrop of this, Bitmain is reported to be expanding operations in the US by launching local production lines. According to the official release, this development is to enable them to serve North Americans better by improving supply chain efficiency, reducing delivery delays, and providing more responsive support. It is also important to note that the US leads Bitcoin mining with 36% of the global hashrate. As detailed in our last news piece, Texas alone contributes 17%.

The Bitcoin price seems to be reacting to this development as it surged by 2% in the last 24 hours to trade at $92k. Our market data also indicates that the asset has, however, recorded a 10% decline in trading volume as $52 billion changes hands at press time. According to our recent analysis, the price could continue to hit $250k this year.