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U.S. mining stocks struggled due to delays in receiving essential mining hardware from Chinese manufacturer Bitmain. According to CoinTelegraph, the setbacks come amid heightened scrutiny from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on high-performance computing imports, including application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) vital for cryptocurrency mining.
The ongoing issues began in November 2024 when the CBP started detaining Bitmain ASIC shipments at US entry points. This action was part of a broader crackdown that has caused months-long holdups for these critical mining components. The situation worsened when, in January 2025, the US Department of Commerce blacklisted Sophgo, an AI firm with connections to Bitmain, prohibiting them from receiving US AI chips.
These disruptions come at a time when the mining sector is facing heightened competition and increasing Bitcoin mining difficulty, which CryptoQuant data indicates has soared to over 114 trillion. The delays threaten to further erode US mining firms' profitability, as fears of an extended trade war with China loom.
The MinerMag reports a decline in the mining hash price to $53 per petahash per second (PH/s), putting older mining hardware models, like the Antminer S19 Pro, on the brink of operating at a loss, especially in regions with high electricity or hosting costs.
Publicly-listed mining companies had already been under financial strain due to the Bitcoin block subsidy halving in April 2024, which reduced rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block, coupled with a rising network hashrate.
In response to these challenges, mining firms in 2024 adopted various strategies, such as retaining Bitcoin on their balance sheets and diversifying into AI data center operations. However, the current hardware shipment delays could potentially undermine these efforts, adding further stress to an already pressured industry.
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