Source: Bloomberg
Author: Ryan Weeks, Sidhartha Shukla
Over the years, one of the most profitable areas in the field of cryptocurrency has been controlled by a Chinese company for a long time.As Sino -US relations intensify and Trump may re -enter the White House, the company's dominance is facing unprecedented threats.
Bitmain, headquartered in Beijing, accounts for 90%of the Bitcoin mining machine.A large customer in the industry compared it to the heyday diamond producer De Beers, saying that as long as the production of mining machines is adjusted by the Etherdo, the global market price can be dominated.
But Trump said he hoped that Bitcoin's "mining, casting, and manufacturing" must be in the United States. Newly -emerging competitors saw the opportunity to snatch market share from Bitmain.
Trump's remarks make Bitmain's worsening political environment in the United States even worse. Now most Bitcoin is mining in the United States, and more and more people are worried that Bitmain's equipment may be used for spy activities.
Bitmain's competitors, Rajiv Khemani, chief executive of Auradine, headquartered in California, said that Trump may "want to challenge Chinese companies in this field." There are many reasons, including national securityquestion.
New changes have appeared in the market.In July of this year, Core Scientific, headquartered in Austin, Texas, broke the tradition and announced that it would order equipment from a subsidiary of Jack Dorsey's Block, although Bitmain was one of the largest investors in the company.
Auradine raised $ 8 million in April, and shipped the first batch of mining machines at the end of July.Marathon Digital Holdings Inc., one of the largest customers of Bitmain, is a shareholder of Auradine.
Bitmain refused to respond to the question of Bloomberg News.
When someone "excavates" Bitcoin, they are actually using special computer devices to solve an extremely complicated mathematical problem.In order to achieve this goal, these machines (commonly known as the "rig") will use violent means to calculate the problems every second.Each successful attempt helps to support the blockchain and get Bitcoin rewards.
If you take a car for an analogy, the mining rig will be good for the car: strong power and single use.According to data from the Cambridge University's Alternative Financial Research Center, the consumption of mining rig consumption accounted for 0.6%of the global power consumption last year.
Therefore, the economy of Bitcoin mining depends to a large extent on the price of Bitcoin, as well as how to get cheap power and have the most efficient drilling rig.
According to the 2018 Fundable Manual, Bitmain was founded by Zhanck Group and Wu Jihan in 2013.The company later canceled the Hong Kong listing plan.Bitmain's collar pages show that its headquarters is located in Beijing.
From the beginning of its establishment, Bitmain stood out by providing strong and reliable machines, in order to maintain a leading position in competition.The company continues to upgrade its iconic ant mining machine.
"Whenever they launch a new machine, they will reshape the market's competitive pattern," said Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital, said, "People who can seize these opportunities can immediately gain competitive advantages."
Trump imposed tariffs on electronic products and other goods imported from China in 2018.According to a dealer, in order to avoid the threat of tariffs, some production was transferred from China to Southeast Asia a few years ago.
Four insiders who do not want to be named said that Bitmain currently does not have any production bases in the United States.According to Taras Kulyk, CEO of Bitmain's equipment distributor Synteq Digital, the company has a production line in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
But in the era of exacerbating competition between China and the United States and the deterioration of relations between the two countries, even if the production line is placed in a third country and established the "moat" itself, Bitmain may still be unable to take it alone.
After Bitcoin mining is prohibited in China, Bitcoin mining has been transferred to the United States.At the same time, the United States is also stepping up efforts to prevent geopolitical opponents from obtaining the most advanced computing devices, such as chips used to support artificial intelligence.The battle for the hegemony of the chip is disrupting the entire supply chain, which has also led to more review of people and their hardware sources of people who excavate cryptocurrencies in the United States.
In May, US President Biden asked a Chinese Bitcoin mine called Mineone to move away and sell a 12 -acre land near Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The US Foreign Investment Commission stated in a statement that one of the reasons is that the mine has "dedicated and foreign sources" for mining of cryptocurrencies, "may be easy to monitor and engage in spy activities."
"General concerns"
At the Senate Bank, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on July 25, the Democratic Senator Elizabeth Wallen pressured the Ministry of Finance Paul Rosen and asked if Bitcoin mining equipment in North Range may be used to monitorUS military operations.
"People are generally worried that the cutting -edge equipment close to sensitive facilities may be used for espionage," Rosen, an assistant minister responsible for investment security."North Range base is adjacent to F.E. Warren Air Force Base, which is adjacent to the US storage nuclear missile.
Rosen did not explain in detail how the mining machine was used for espionage, and the May statement did not mention Bitmain.The Ministry of Finance will not further comment.The United States has not yet publicly provided evidence that display mining machines are used for spy activity.
Even so, Mineone was asked to remove all equipment at the scene and move away from the local area.According to a person familiar with the matter, most of these mining machines come from Bitmain.
Check the interior of the rig
Mineone agrees to sell mining facilities located in Wyoming and CampStool to Cleanspark.The company claiming to be "American Bitcoin Miner" is looking for a place to place a place of $ hundreds of millions of dollars in January, all of which come from Bitmain.
The contracts signed by Bitmain Technologies Delaware LTD., Bitmain Technology, stipulated that "natives of natives of natives can be China" or any country sanctioned by foreign asset control offices.Cleanspark has the right to refuse to accept products that have been discovered from China or Foreign Asset Control Office sanctions. In this case, Bitmain must be replaced with the same machines produced in other places.
"This is really important to us," said Zach Bradford, CEO of Cleanspark."Not only because of tariffs, but also because of the political situation."
However, Bradford sneer at mining machines for spy activity.He said, "There are no memory on these devices for spy activities."
The cryptocurrency mining dealer, located in Kangzhou, was purchased from Bitmain about 12,000 mining machines. About two years ago, the company was accidentally affected by the US -China dispute.
A scale that has been reduced to a reduced ant mining machine is transferred to Bitfufu Inc., which is listed in the United States for distribution, Bitmain holds 41%of the company's shares.Patricia Trompeter, CEO of Sphere 3D, said that the subsequent errors in documents caused the delivery of 4,000 mining machines to be terminated.
She said that the customs personnel who tried to determine the source of these equipment pry open one of the machines and found a small "Made in China" label in it.Trompeter said that these devices were detained by customs for three months until Bitmain helped solve the problem, and she refused to disclose how it was finally solved.But said, "That's a very difficult period for my company."
Bitfufu and US customs are not commented.
The possibility of Trump's re -control has made the prospects of cryptocurrency mining machines more complicated.Trump had doubts about cryptocurrencies during his first term, but after several well -known currency circles generously donated, he had become a supporter of the industry.
On July 27, Trump gave a speech at the Bitcoin Conference held by Nashville, Tennessee, saying that cryptocurrencies should "mining, cast and manufacture" in the United States.He said in an interview with Bloomberg Business Week in June that he believed that this was a necessary move to avoid China, although China has completely banned virtual currency transactions including mining.
Trump has not publicly commented on Betland, nor does it notify whether mining machines made by China or other places for potential national security threats.But various signs show that his "Made in the United States" is starting to resonate.
As of two years ago, the Riot Blockchain Inc., who only used Bitmain Mining machines, has cooperated with another Chinese manufacturer Microbt since June 2023.
Riot spokesman said their procurement agreement was aimed at the "American production base in the United States."The spokesman said that doing so can better control the supply chain.
However, for many miners, all these supply chain reorganizations failed to solve a disturbing fact, that is, Bitmain's mining machines are still gold standards.
Trompeter of SPHERE 3D said, "When someone said that when you should not buy Chinese machines, as a female businessman, my reaction is that you give me a alternative to me for the same quality made in the United States. If I am it, I am it.A Bitcoin miner, and if I need to improve efficiency, it has the most efficient machine than Battle. "
