China’s top bitcoin mining rig manufacturers – Bitmain, Canaan, and MicroBT – are establishing production bases in the United States in a bid to circumvent U.S. tariffs and preserve market access, Reuters reported.
The three companies produce over 90% of global bitcoin mining machines – specialized hardware that performs high-speed computations to validate bitcoin transactions. The shift to U.S. manufacturing comes as former President Donald Trump’s trade policies reshape the cryptocurrency supply chain.
“The U.S.–China trade war is triggering structural, not superficial, changes in bitcoin’s supply chains,” Reuters quoted Guang Yang, Chief Technology Officer at Conflux Network. Yang added that for U.S. firms, “this goes beyond tariffs. It’s a strategic pivot toward ‘politically acceptable’ hardware sources.”
Bitmain began U.S. production in December, calling it a “strategic move” after Trump’s November election win. Canaan has launched pilot production aimed at avoiding tariffs imposed in April under Trump’s “Liberation Day” policy. \
Canaan’s vice president Leo Wang told Reuters that although the initiative is still exploratory, it reflects the company’s need to manage geopolitical risks. MicroBT said it is “actively implementing a localisation strategy in the U.S.” to avoid tariff impacts.
Frost & Sullivan estimated that as of December 2023, the three Chinese firms controlled 95.4% of the mining hardware market based on computing power sold. The global market could reach $12 billion by 2028, according to analysts cited by Reuters.
Auradine – a U.S.-based competitor backed by major bitcoin miner MARA Holdings – has been lobbying for limits on Chinese imports to encourage domestic alternatives. “While over 30% of global bitcoin mining occurs in North America, more than 90% of mining hardware originates from China – representing a major imbalance of geographic demand and supply,” Auradine’s Chief Strategy Officer Sanjay Gupta told Reuters.
Gupta also warned of the security risks posed by Chinese machines. “Hundreds of thousands of them connected to the U.S. electrical grid” could be a vulnerability, he said. Canaan’s Wang rejected the concern, arguing that mining rigs are harmless outside of their specific function.
Still, U.S. restrictions on Chinese tech firms are mounting. Bitmain’s AI affiliate, Sophgo, has been blacklisted on security grounds, Reuters noted. Bitmain declined to comment.
Even though China banned domestic crypto activity in 2021, its manufacturers retained global dominance, partly due to early innovation in chip design. Canaan has since moved its headquarters to Singapore and reported that the U.S. accounted for 40% of its 2023 revenue.
“This isn’t about hurting the industry,” Komodo CTO Kadan Stadlemann told Reuters. “It’s about forcing a long-overdue shift.” Staff Reporter
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