Washington moves to cut China out of the machines powering US Bitcoin mining
America holds roughly 38% of global Bitcoin mining capacity, and the specialized hardware powering that position comes overwhelmingly from Chinese manufacturers.
Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced the Mined in America Act on Mar. 30 to address that gap, proposing certification, domestic manufacturing support, and the codification of President Donald Trump's Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to begin unwinding a foreign hardware dependence they frame as a national industrial vulnerability.
Cassidy's office cites 97% of mining hardware coming from China. Hashrate Index's January 2026 update places US Bitcoin mining capacity at roughly 37%-38% of the global total, at around 400 exahashes per second.
Both data points describe the same supply-chain gap: American mining operations running on machines supplied by Chinese manufacturers. That combination of leading the world in an activity while relying on adversary-linked manufacturers for the machines that enable it is the argument the bill puts into legislative form.
The bill proposes a voluntary “Mined in America” certification administered by Commerce. Certified facilities would phase out mining hardware linked to foreign adversaries.
NIST and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership would support domestic hardware manufacturing by drawing on existing federal energy and rural programs. Cassidy's office says the bill operates within current program authorities.
The bill would also write the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve into statute. Trump's March 2025 executive order created the reserve using forfeited government Bitcoin and specified that any additional acquisition strategies must be budget neutral, imposing no incremental taxpayer cost.
Moving the reserve from executive action to law would give it legislative standing beyond a single administration and, for the first time, bind the hardware-sourcing argument to a federal balance sheet instrument.
The Mined in America Act rests on a specific argument: owning the activity layer while ceding the hardware layer to foreign-origin manufacturers leaves the US exposed upstream.
The bill's answer spans certification, manufacturing support, and reserve codification, three policy levers that together frame Bitcoin mining as a sector deserving the same upstream attention Washington gives to semiconductors or critical minerals.
Why Washington got here
Reuters reported that US authorities began seizing some Chinese-made mining equipment at ports in late 2024 on FCC and Customs enforcement grounds, before releasing some of it in March 2025.
Those seizures gave the hardware dependence argument concrete, documented weight.
The port-level friction raised a question that the bill now codifies in law: if Chinese-origin mining gear can be caught by customs enforcement, what does that mean for an industry whose hardware stack now connects directly to Treasury reserve policy?
For the bill's backers, the episode turned that question from theory into documented enforcement history.
Mining economics made the supply chain exposure more consequential. A CoinShares report puts network hash price in the $30 to $35 per petahash per day range, with roughly 15% to 20% of the global fleet operating at a loss at those levels.
Hardware supply disruptions land harder when the hash price environment already squeezes margins, with operators unable to quickly source replacement machines facing real operational exposure from a customs hold or tariff escalation.
The SEC released guidance on Mar. 17 clarifying the treatment of protocol mining and other crypto activities. A July 2025 White House digital assets report directed Congress and regulators to support US digital asset leadership.
Washington now treats crypto infrastructure as an industrial-policy category, and the Mined in America Act arrives as the hardware-sourcing component of that reorientation.
| Date | Event | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| Late 2024 | U.S. authorities began seizing some Chinese-made mining equipment at ports | Turned hardware dependence from a theoretical concern into a real enforcement issue |
| March 2025 | Some of the seized mining equipment began to be released | Showed the issue was active and operational, not a one-off headline |
| March 2025 | Trump’s executive order created the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve | Elevated Bitcoin from a market topic to a federal policy and Treasury issue |
| July 2025 | White House digital assets report backed U.S. digital-asset leadership | Placed crypto infrastructure within a broader national competitiveness agenda |
| March 17, 2026 | SEC released guidance on protocol mining and other crypto activities | Signaled a more formal federal posture toward crypto infrastructure |
| March 30, 2026 | Cassidy and Lummis introduced the Mined in America Act | Put the mining-hardware supply-chain issue into legislative form |
The bill's logic runs through the same channel as semiconductor policy, battery manufacturing, or telecom equipment: who controls the machines behind a compute-intensive infrastructure that now touches power markets and the Federal Reserve.
In 2024, the EIA estimated that cryptocurrency mining could account for up to 2.3% of US electricity consumption at 137 identified facilities. March reporting shows data-center electricity demand already generating public pushback over grid strain and utility costs.
Mining now sits within a broader public infrastructure debate, well beyond crypto.
The harder question the bill raises is what “American” hardware actually means. Reports noted that Chinese-origin manufacturers have already begun establishing US production footholds, in part to navigate tariffs, while US-based Auradine has been promoting its products and policy case for domestically designed ASICs.
Assembly in America and design-plus-component-sourcing in America produce different supply chain outcomes, and the bill's certification framework will eventually have to define which one earns the label.
What this bill represents
The Mined in America Act drawing broad Republican support and the White House folding it into a combined reserve-protection and manufacturing plank represents the bull case.
Domestic and domestically assembled rig capacity expands enough to capture meaningful orders from certified facilities.
The US holds its high-30s share of global hash rate while reducing upstream concentration risk, and Bitcoin mining joins semiconductors and critical minerals as a named category in US industrial policy.
In this scenario, Auradine and potential new entrants capture orders that currently go abroad.
In the bear case, the legislation stalls. “Mined in America” functions as a certification brand with limited uptake, and miners continue buying from Chinese-origin vendors because price, performance, and availability dominate purchasing decisions.
| Test area | Bull case | Bear case |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic mining hardware capacity | U.S. and domestically assembled rig supply expands enough to win meaningful orders | Domestic capacity stays too limited to shift buying patterns |
| Certified facility uptake | Miners adopt “Mined in America” certification in meaningful numbers | Certification becomes mostly symbolic with limited market uptake |
| U.S. hash-rate position | U.S. keeps its high-30s share of global mining while reducing hardware dependence | U.S. maintains mining share but remains exposed to foreign hardware supply |
| Dependence on Chinese-origin vendors | Operators diversify away from dominant Chinese-origin manufacturers | Price, performance, and availability keep miners buying from the same vendors |
| Auradine and potential new entrants | U.S.-based suppliers capture orders that previously went abroad | New entrants struggle to compete on cost and scale |
| Strategic Bitcoin Reserve relevance | Reserve policy and mining hardware policy become part of one industrial strategy | Reserve codification remains mostly separate from the actual hardware bottleneck |
| Broader policy meaning | Bitcoin mining joins semiconductors and critical minerals as a named industrial-policy category | The bill stands mainly as a statement of vulnerability rather than a reshoring success |
| Bottom line | America converts mining leadership into upstream supply-chain resilience | America continues leading in mining activity without controlling the machines behind it |
Washington's policy ambitions outpace its industrial capacity to execute them, and the bill serves as a documented statement of vulnerability that the domestic manufacturing base has yet to answer.
The bill's introduction puts the supply chain gap in Bitcoin's hardware layer onto the Senate's legislative record.
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