The mining industry celebrated Trump’s election victory, but his new trade war is dragging down the stocks of Marathon, Riot, and others. How threatened Bitcoin miners are now.
Donald Trump was actually considered the darling of all US Bitcoin miners. During the election campaign, he focused on energy dominance and promised generous support for the mining industry.
Now, the trade war unleashed by the US president is plunging the share prices of the mining giants. MARA lost 11.23 percent on the day, Riot corrected by 9 percent, and Core Scientific even plummeted by 15 percent.
Overall, the major publicly traded Bitcoin miners are valued at just $20.3 billion. The four largest mining companies in the world are all based in the United States.
The problem: The Republican wants to impose a base tariff of 10 percent on all imports into the US and is demanding an even higher tariff of 34 percent on Chinese goods. The majority of mining equipment comes from China.
“Operationally, the tariffs will certainly impact mining companies that rely heavily on Chinese ASIC manufacturers for their future growth,” Bitcoin mining expert Wolfie Zhao warns Decrypt.
One of the largest mining hardware manufacturers, Bitmain, is based in the Chinese capital Beijing and maintains production facilities in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The US government will now impose a 36 percent tariff on Thai products.
The abrupt change in import tariffs could lead to rising costs for the mining industry. This would affect the hash rate of the Bitcoin network and consequently reduce the profitability of mining in the US.
“We want all of the remaining BTC to be mined in the US,” the US president announced at the Bitcoin Conference. Now his protectionist policies could cause lasting damage to the mining industry.
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