U.S. lawmakers bring up another major bill: “de-Sinofication” of the mining industry, and Bitcoin reserves included in the law

Author: Nancy, PANews

The U.S. bitcoin mining industry is starting to brew a plan to decouple from China. On March 30, U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced the “U.S. Mining Act,” aiming to drive expansion of domestic cryptocurrency mining in the United States, reduce reliance on Chinese mining machines, and also move the Bitcoin strategic reserve from an executive order into a formal legal framework. On the one hand, this is a strategic layout to reposition crypto mining as infrastructure and a grid-management strategy. On the other hand, it is also an important contest over computing power amid intensifying U.S.-China technology competition. 97% of mining machines depend on China—pushing domestic production of mining equipment

Digital asset mining is an important part of the U.S. economy, and we should mine within the United States. When President Trump took office last year, he promised to make the U.S. the global center for digital assets—we won’t back down.

The U.S. Mining Act was jointly introduced by U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis. This is not the first time the two have collaborated in the field of crypto legislation. In September last year, they jointly pushed for the modernization of the cryptocurrency tax system. As one of the most active crypto policy advocates in Congress, Lummis’s policy agenda covers key legislation such as the Bitcoin strategic reserve, the GENIUS Act, and the CLARITY Act, which has also drawn significant attention to this new proposal. This mining bill is not simply an industry support policy—it is more like a strategic layout centered on computing power and infrastructure, with the core goal of bringing crypto mining back to the U.S. as much as possible. The bill proposes that the U.S. Department of Commerce would lead the establishment of a voluntary certification system, bringing border-region mine sites and mining pools into a standardized, compliant regulatory framework. Once certified, these mining firms may not directly receive new fiscal appropriations, but they will obtain a legal identity and become eligible to connect to existing federal energy subsidies and rural development programs. This also means that crypto mining is being redefined as a tool for grid management and energy development. Against the backdrop that many countries view mining as a high-risk or restricted industry, the U.S. is trying to transform it into part of infrastructure through a compliance-based pathway. However, the bill also sets a hard requirement: certified mine sites must gradually phase out mining equipment related to foreign competitors. And this target is clearly aimed at China. The draft is blunt about the fact that the U.S. currently controls about 38% of global bitcoin hash power, but about 97% of mining hardware comes from China. This is not technological leadership—it is supply chain risk. To get out of dependence on foreign sources, the draft further requires assistance from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to help U.S. manufacturers develop secure, energy-efficient crypto mining equipment. At present, the bill has already received support from the Satoshi Action Fund and is expected to be formally submitted to Congress within the next few weeks. After that, it still needs to go through committee review, amendments, and votes in both chambers before it could ultimately be sent to the president for signature to become law. However, there remains uncertainty about whether the bill can pass smoothly. As a key driver of this policy, Lummis’s term ends in January 2027, leaving relatively limited time for this legislative window. Mining and tech rivalry is the new battleground—Bitmain faces review in the U.S.

Against the background of continued growth in computing power and energy demand, bitcoin mining is gradually rising to become an important component of technological competition. The U.S. has increasingly become one of the world’s largest bitcoin mining hubs. Although it holds a substantial share of computing power, the upstream supply chain of the crypto mining industry remains highly concentrated in China’s mining machine manufacturers. As frictions between the U.S. and China in trade, technology, and security continue to intensify, the U.S. is also accelerating regulatory scrutiny of the crypto mining industry on the grounds of “national security.” In fact, as early as 2024, the Biden administration ordered the forced shutdown of a China-based bitcoin mine in Wyoming near a nuclear missile base, citing significant potential security risks that could be used for surveillance, espionage, or intelligence collection. After entering 2025, as AI computing power demand grows rapidly and many miners begin shifting toward AI infrastructure, this trend has further heightened regulatory and geopolitical concerns. As one of the world’s leading mining machine manufacturers, Bitmain is among the main targets of attention. In late 2024, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducted strict inspections of its bitcoin mining equipment, suspecting that it may have violated export control regulations related to Huawei, leading to some shipments being held up for more than two months or even longer. In September last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also conducted a surprise inspection of a bitcoin mining site in Texas, focusing on the Antminer maintenance center operated by ADW Tech, a company associated with Bitmain, and arrested multiple employees of the mining site. According to a report by Bloomberg, in the “Red Sunset” operation led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ASIC mining machines produced by Bitmain have been listed as investigation targets, with a focus on assessing whether they could be remotely controlled for espionage activities or to disrupt the U.S. power grid. This investigation began about two years ago. In response, Bitmain denied the related allegations and said it had not been informed of the so-called details of the investigation. Recently, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the Secretary of Commerce, requesting documents and other information regarding the mining firm Bitmain in order to assess its potential national security risks. In the letter, Warren also specifically focused on business ties between Bitmain and the Trump family, requesting disclosure of communications records between Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Bitmain. It is understood that American Bitcoin Corp, a U.S. mining company backed by the Trump family, purchased more than 16,000 mining machines from Bitmain last year for about $314 million. The transaction did not use traditional cash or loans to make payment; instead, it was settled through bitcoin collateral/pledging. Not only that, the two sides also plan to jointly develop a large data center in the Texas region. The project scale is roughly equivalent to five football fields and is expected to become one of the largest bitcoin mining facilities in the world. This series of collaborations is seen as Bitmain deepening its ties with U.S. mining companies that have political backgrounds, strengthening its presence and penetration in the U.S. market. In response, Bitmain said the related reports do not match the facts, while American Bitcoin said its equipment underwent independent security testing and no remote access vulnerabilities were found, and that the company places importance on compliance. Incorporating bitcoin reserves into law—clarifying the expansion path

Another key change in the draft is that the bitcoin strategic reserve, which previously operated in the form of an executive order, would be incorporated into the legal framework and established within the U.S. Department of the Treasury as a long-term mechanism. In March last year, Trump signed an executive order to push for the establishment of this reserve system. Under the design at the time, the funding source was not fiscal appropriations, but bitcoin obtained by the federal government through criminal and civil asset forfeiture proceedings. However, by nature an executive order is a tool for the president to exercise executive power based on existing legal authorizations. Although it takes effect quickly, because it is not enacted by Congress, a succeeding president could directly revoke, modify, or pause the relevant arrangements without needing congressional approval. This also makes the bitcoin reserve closer to a policy arrangement with uncertainty. If this bill passes successfully, the bitcoin strategic reserve would for the first time obtain an explicit legal status, thereby significantly enhancing its long-term stability and policy certainty. On this basis, the bill also designs a sustainable mechanism for reserve expansion. According to the draft, the staking yields and airdrop income generated from other digital assets seized by the government will be used to continue purchasing bitcoin. At the same time, certified domestic U.S. miners can sell newly mined bitcoin directly to the government and receive an exemption from capital gains taxes. This arrangement not only helps drive the mining industry back to the U.S. and expand the scale of domestic computing power, but also provides a budget-neutral growth path for the strategic reserve—avoiding large-scale buying in public markets or raising funds through increased taxes. Overall, from domestic mining machine manufacturing to the operation of compliant mine sites and then to a national-level reserve framework, the U.S. is attempting to build a complete mining industry closed-loop system so that it can form sustainable industrial development.