Media reports

June 19 news, according to Reuters, the world's top three Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining machine manufacturersBitmain, Canaan Creative and Bitmicroare planning to set up manufacturing factories and establish supply chains in the United States to avoid the impact of U.S. tariff policies.

The "mining machine" market continues to grow, with Chinese manufacturers occupying a dominant position.

With the continuous growth of the cryptocurrency market in recent years and the representative Bitcoin price breaking through $100,000, the market demand for virtual currency mining machines is also very strong. According to analysts' predictions, the value of the mining machine industry will reach $12 billion by 2028. 

 According to the forecast of consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, as of December 2023, the three manufacturers Bitmain, Canaan Creative and Bitmicro occupied 95.4% of the global cryptocurrency mining machine equipment market share (earlier data showed that the third-ranked was Ebang International).

 China once dominated the entire cryptocurrency value chain - from mining machine manufacturing to mining and trading - until its government banned virtual currency activities in mainland China in 2021 on the grounds of financial stability risks. Subsequently, "miners", traders and exchanges moved abroad. However, protected by their role as technology manufacturers, Bitmain, Canaan Creative and Bitmicro continue to dominate the hardware field. They have fended off Western competitors, partly due to their first-mover advantage in developing high-performance chips tailored for mining. At present, the above three major mining machine manufacturers not only control the supply of mining machine chips, mining machine equipment and supporting hardware, but also have their own mining pools.

The role of the mining pool is to improve mining efficiency by centralizing computing power. Miners connect their mining machines to the mining pool, which is responsible for managing and distributing mining proceeds. This way allows miners to use resources more efficiently and improve the success rate and income stability of mining.

Affected by U.S. tariff policies, Chinese mining machine manufacturers are moving their production to the United States.

However, as the China-U.S. trade war continues to escalate, the reciprocal tariff policies imposed by the Trump administration are triggering changes in the cryptocurrency mining machine supply chain. In April this year, the U.S. announced a 34% reciprocal tariff on products exported from China to the United States. Subsequently, both sides continued to impose reciprocal countermeasures, and the U.S. once accumulated tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. to 145%.

Although on May 12, China and the U.S. reached a phased tariff agreement, the U.S. side canceled 91% of the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods since April 8, 2025, and suspended 24% of the previous 34% reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods for 90 days, temporarily retaining the remaining 10% tariffs. However, if the subsequent negotiations between the two sides are not satisfactory, the U.S. may still continue to impose 34% or even higher tariffs on China. If combined with the 20% tariffs that have been accumulated since February this year before the announcement of reciprocal tariffs, the tax rate will be as high as 54%.

Take Bitmain's current strongest Bitcoin Miner S23 Hyd. (now available for pre-order, with delivery in January 2026) as an example. Its price is $17,400. If a 54% tariff is imposed on exports to the U.S., it means that its U.S. customers will have to pay an additional $9,396 in tariffs, which will undoubtedly greatly reduce the competitiveness of its products in the U.S. market.

Obviously, this will be a major blow to the Chinese mining machine giants that dominate the global cryptocurrency mining machine equipment market. Because the U.S. market accounts for more than 30% of the global market for cryptocurrency mining machine purchases. This has directly prompted Chinese cryptocurrency mining machine manufacturers to move their production to the United States. 

Bitmain, the world's largest mining machine manufacturer, began producing mining machine equipment in the U.S. in December 2024, one month after Trump won the presidential election, which is a "strategic move". 

Leo Wang, vice president of corporate development and capital markets at Canaan Creative, also told Reuters that after Trump announced his so-called "reciprocal tariffs" on April 2, Canaan Creative also began trial production of its mining machine equipment in the U.S. to avoid the impact of tariffs. He said the move is exploratory because the volatile tariff situation rules out large investments. 

"Our reason is to try to reduce costs for us and our customers," Leo Wang said, adding that the prospect of tariffs means "we have to explore all alternatives". However, the U.S. may also raise tariffs on Southeast Asian countries where Chinese mining machine manufacturers have set up assembly plants. 

Bitmicro, which ranks third, also said in a statement that it is "actively implementing a localization strategy in the United States" to "avoid the impact of tariffs".

"Bottleneck" and "Threat Theory"

Due to the dominant position of Chinese manufacturers in the cryptocurrency mining machine market, some American competitors and politicians have been hyping up the "threat theory" regarding Chinese cryptocurrency mining machines. 

For instance, Auradine, a mining machine manufacturer backed by MARA Holdings, the highest-valued Bitcoin miner in the United States, has been lobbying the U.S. government to restrict the export of Chinese-made mining machines to the U.S., aiming to stimulate the development of the domestic mining machine equipment sector in the country. 

"While over 30% of global Bitcoin mining takes place in North America, more than 90% of mining hardware comes from China, which represents a significant geographical imbalance in supply and demand," said Sanjay Gupta, Chief Strategy Officer of Auradine. 

Sanjay Gupta also stated that for Chinese cryptocurrency mining equipment, "hundreds of thousands of units connected to the U.S. power grid" pose security risks.

In response, Leo Wang of Canaan Creative refuted that cryptocurrency mining equipment does not threaten security because "they would be useless if not used for Bitcoin mining." Nevertheless, he said, manufacturers may suffer "collateral damage" due to U.S. restrictions on the sale of high technology to Chinese companies.

Bitmain's AI affiliate Sophgo was previously added to the U.S. entity list on security grounds, highlighting such risks. 

It is worth noting that U.S. President Trump has pledged to promote the mainstream use of cryptocurrencies in the United States. His son, Eric Trump, along with energy and technology company Hut 8, launched American Bitcoin, aiming to build a strategic Bitcoin reserve. 

However, the dominant position of Chinese manufacturers in the cryptocurrency mining equipment market "creates a bottleneck for U.S. miners," said John Deaton, a U.S. crypto lawyer. "If China restricts exports or manipulates supply... it could disrupt Bitcoin's network stability and affect U.S. users and investors.

" Ryan M. Yonk, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, also noted that currently, the largest miners by market value—MARA, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, and Riot Platforms—are all U.S.-based, so over-reliance on hardware originating from China "could be problematic." 

To avoid political implications, Canaan Creative began developing its business in Singapore several years ago, even though the Chinese market accounts for 40% of its revenue.

Kadan Stadlemann, Chief Technology Officer of cryptocurrency platform Komodo, said that Chinese mining machine manufacturers may set up factories in the United States, but in the short term, U.S. cryptocurrency miners will still purchase mining machines from China and be troubled by higher import costs. "But this is not about harming the industry. It's about forcing a long-overdue shift," he said. 

"The China-U.S. trade war is triggering structural changes in the Bitcoin supply chain, not superficial ones," said Guang Yang, Chief Technology Officer of blockchain technology provider Conflux Network. For U.S. companies, "this change has even gone beyond tariffs, moving towards a strategic shift to 'politically acceptable' sources of hardware."