The post Why Washington now eyes BTC miners appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Homepage > News > Business > The shadow over Bitmain: Why Washington now eyes BTC miners For years, most BTC holders didn’t think twice about where their mining equipment came from. Bitmain—this massive Beijing-based manufacturer—just kept shipping Antminers to warehouses in Texas, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, wherever. As long as the rigs worked and the hash rate kept climbing, nobody really cared. That casual attitude died this month when the U.S. government launched a national-security investigation into Bitmain and its stranglehold on global mining hardware. They’re calling it Operation Red Sunset, which should tell you how seriously they’re taking this. Here’s what has Washington spooked: Bitmain controls approximately 80% of the world’s Bitcoin mining equipment. And basically every modern Antminer can be accessed remotely through firmware updates. Theoretically, one command pushed from their headquarters in China could throttle, redirect, or completely brick a huge chunk of the BTC network’s processing power. Intelligence officials worry that Beijing could exploit that access directly, or force Bitmain to do it during some future crisis—Taiwan keeps coming up in these conversations. Making things messier, one of Bitmain’s biggest recent customers is American Bitcoin, a mining operation backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. So yeah, that’s added some urgency to the whole thing. American Bitcoin ordered 16,000 high-end rigs earlier this year for a new facility somewhere in the Midwest. The irony isn’t subtle: a company connected to the incoming first family is now at the center of an investigation designed to reduce foreign control over critical U.S. infrastructure. From what I’m hearing, investigators are especially interested in whether those machines have hidden backdoors or telemetry channels that Beijing could flip on without anyone knowing. Bitmain claims that its remote-management tools are solely for customer support and monitoring efficiency. They insist that no government has… The post Why Washington now eyes BTC miners appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Homepage > News > Business > The shadow over Bitmain: Why Washington now eyes BTC miners For years, most BTC holders didn’t think twice about where their mining equipment came from. Bitmain—this massive Beijing-based manufacturer—just kept shipping Antminers to warehouses in Texas, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, wherever. As long as the rigs worked and the hash rate kept climbing, nobody really cared. That casual attitude died this month when the U.S. government launched a national-security investigation into Bitmain and its stranglehold on global mining hardware. They’re calling it Operation Red Sunset, which should tell you how seriously they’re taking this. Here’s what has Washington spooked: Bitmain controls approximately 80% of the world’s Bitcoin mining equipment. And basically every modern Antminer can be accessed remotely through firmware updates. Theoretically, one command pushed from their headquarters in China could throttle, redirect, or completely brick a huge chunk of the BTC network’s processing power. Intelligence officials worry that Beijing could exploit that access directly, or force Bitmain to do it during some future crisis—Taiwan keeps coming up in these conversations. Making things messier, one of Bitmain’s biggest recent customers is American Bitcoin, a mining operation backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. So yeah, that’s added some urgency to the whole thing. American Bitcoin ordered 16,000 high-end rigs earlier this year for a new facility somewhere in the Midwest. The irony isn’t subtle: a company connected to the incoming first family is now at the center of an investigation designed to reduce foreign control over critical U.S. infrastructure. From what I’m hearing, investigators are especially interested in whether those machines have hidden backdoors or telemetry channels that Beijing could flip on without anyone knowing. Bitmain claims that its remote-management tools are solely for customer support and monitoring efficiency. They insist that no government has…

Why Washington now eyes BTC miners

2025/12/09 14:02

For years, most BTC holders didn’t think twice about where their mining equipment came from. Bitmain—this massive Beijing-based manufacturer—just kept shipping Antminers to warehouses in Texas, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, wherever. As long as the rigs worked and the hash rate kept climbing, nobody really cared. That casual attitude died this month when the U.S. government launched a national-security investigation into Bitmain and its stranglehold on global mining hardware. They’re calling it Operation Red Sunset, which should tell you how seriously they’re taking this.

Here’s what has Washington spooked: Bitmain controls approximately 80% of the world’s Bitcoin mining equipment. And basically every modern Antminer can be accessed remotely through firmware updates. Theoretically, one command pushed from their headquarters in China could throttle, redirect, or completely brick a huge chunk of the BTC network’s processing power. Intelligence officials worry that Beijing could exploit that access directly, or force Bitmain to do it during some future crisis—Taiwan keeps coming up in these conversations. Making things messier, one of Bitmain’s biggest recent customers is American Bitcoin, a mining operation backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. So yeah, that’s added some urgency to the whole thing.

American Bitcoin ordered 16,000 high-end rigs earlier this year for a new facility somewhere in the Midwest. The irony isn’t subtle: a company connected to the incoming first family is now at the center of an investigation designed to reduce foreign control over critical U.S. infrastructure. From what I’m hearing, investigators are especially interested in whether those machines have hidden backdoors or telemetry channels that Beijing could flip on without anyone knowing.

Bitmain claims that its remote-management tools are solely for customer support and monitoring efficiency. They insist that no government has ever made them insert malicious code. But those reassurances don’t mean much to people who remember what happened with Huawei and ZTE. Once Washington decides a tech vendor is too risky, the commercial arguments quickly lose their significance.

This investigation goes way beyond Bitmain, though. The Commerce Department apparently set an internal deadline—December 2025—to shift at least 50% of new BTC mining capacity onto American or allied hardware. Lawmakers from both parties are already drafting bills that would slap steep tariffs on Chinese-made miners and offer accelerated depreciation for operators who switch to domestic brands. We’re talking about Auradine, Marathon’s (NASDAQ: MARA) upcoming MARA Miner, and Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) Blockscale line, which they previously killed but are now apparently reviving.

Miners are stuck in a really awkward spot right now. The newest Bitmain S21 XP Hydros still have the best joules-per-terahash efficiency on the planet, and it’s not even close. Switching to less efficient machines right now means hemorrhaging money at a time when BTC is sitting below $84,000, and electricity costs keep going up. Many public mining companies have informed their investors that they’ll operate their existing Chinese fleets until the hardware literally fails, then determine what to do next. But privately? Executives admit the political risk is getting impossible to ignore.

Inside China, Bitmain’s already adapting. They opened a small assembly plant in Malaysia, and they’re negotiating for a second one in Vietnam—pretty obvious moves to keep shipping containers flowing even if direct U.S. exports get banned. Long-term, though, nobody really believes China’s going to give up its lead in semiconductor fab and mining-chip design without pushing back hard.

For BTC itself, the timing is genuinely terrible. Hash rate is near all-time highs, but profitability has tanked to levels we haven’t seen since the 2022 bear market. Forcing a rapid hardware transition risks a nasty drop in total hash rate right when the ecosystem can’t afford it. Some veterans I’ve talked to are quietly worried that a botched migration could temporarily hand a 51% advantage to whichever pools keep their Bitmain rigs running the longest.

This doesn’t mean everything will fall apart tomorrow. The network’s survived way worse. But Operation Red Sunset marks the point where BTC mining stopped being just another industry and turned into a piece of great-power competition. Those machines that used to feel like neutral tools? They carry geopolitical weight now. Miners who’ve spent years obsessing over watts and uptime suddenly have to think about sovereignty too.

Whether Washington’s freaking out for good reason or overreacting, one thing seems pretty clear: the days when the average BTC user could ignore who actually manufactures the hardware are done.

Watch: Untangling Bitcoin mining at the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream

title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen=””>

Source: https://coingeek.com/the-shadow-over-bitmain-why-washington-now-eyes-btc-miners/

Disclaimer: The articles reposted on this site are sourced from public platforms and are provided for informational purposes only. They do not necessarily reflect the views of MEXC. All rights remain with the original authors. If you believe any content infringes on third-party rights, please contact [email protected] for removal. MEXC makes no guarantees regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the content and is not responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided. The content does not constitute financial, legal, or other professional advice, nor should it be considered a recommendation or endorsement by MEXC.

You May Also Like

GBP/USD rebounds following Fed’s third straight rate trim

GBP/USD rebounds following Fed’s third straight rate trim

The post GBP/USD rebounds following Fed’s third straight rate trim appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. GBP/USD punched a fresh hole into seven-week highs on Wednesday, rising back into the 1.3400 neighborhood after the Federal Reserve (Fed) delivered a widely expected third straight interest rate cut. Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a particularly cautious showing, hinting that the Fed could be poised for another extended “wait and see” period. Global markets largely brushed off the Fed head’s warnings, and rate markets are already pricing in a faster pace of rate cuts over the next two years than the Fed itself expects. Although the Fed projected only one cut for next year, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that rate hikes are essentially off the table, a stance traders welcomed. Futures markets reacted immediately, pricing in a strong chance of two or more cuts in 2026. Stocks had drifted sideways heading into this final meeting of the year, but the Fed’s decision aligned with expectations and helped stabilize sentiment. The remainder of the week is largely lacking in meaningful economic events, but that all ends next week. Cable traders will be staring down the barrel of four straight days of high-impact data releases from next Tuesday, starting with the latest rolling three-month UK labor statistics and global Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) survey results. Wednesday brings the latest UK Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation figures, and the real calendar-rattler will be the Bank of England’s (BoE) latest interest rate call, slated for Thursday. UK Retail Sales figures are trailing behind the BoE, and will close out the week’s UK data docket on Friday. GBP/USD daily chart widely expected Pound Sterling FAQs The Pound Sterling (GBP) is the oldest currency in the world (886 AD) and the official currency of the United Kingdom. It is the fourth most traded unit for foreign exchange (FX) in the world, accounting for 12% of…
Share
BitcoinEthereumNews2025/12/11 07:34