BTC Block Reward Miners Hope Trump's Second Presidential Term Will Offer a Smoother Path to Profitability

The share prices of publicly listed BTC mining operators soared on Wednesday following Trump's electoral victory over opponent Kamala Harris the night before.

BTC block reward miners are hoping that Donald Trump’s second presidential term will pave the way for them to finally achieve profitability, thanks to cheaper electricity, friendlier environmental rules and good old-fashioned patriotism.

The share prices of publicly listed BTC mining operators soared on Wednesday following Trump’s electoral victory over opponent Kamala Harris the night before. Some prominent miners saw their shares jump 20-30% in a single day, fuelled by the perception that Trump will lift the constraints that have kept their operations in the red.

In June, top execs from those same mining companies met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for a 90-minute chat. Trump had likely never heard of block reward mining before that meeting but was reportedly very intrigued by the execs’ claims that if America didn’t let miners do as they pleased, the business of securing BTC network transactions would be left to those godless Chinese communists.

The miners’ pitch also included their participation in the ‘crypto’ sector’s pledge to raise over $100 million and turn out five million voters for Trump’s election campaign. The pitch appeared to work, as mere hours after that meeting, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform about wanting “all the remaining [BTC] to be MADE IN THE USA!!!”

One month later, at a private fundraiser on the fringes of the BTC Nashville conference, mining execs from Riot Platforms, Marathon, CleanSpark and others reportedly paid $500,000 apiece to bend Trump’s ear. The next day, Trump publicly declared his support for miners, acknowledging their insatiable electricity demands by referencing America’s abundant oil supplies and pledging that “with low energy costs, America will become the world’s undisputed [BTC] mining powerhouse.”

Trump cross-referenced miners’ electricity demands with those of AI data centers—which many miners have begun ‘pivoting’ toward because it’s more profitable than minting new BTC. Trump promised that “we’ll be having power plants built at the sites. We’ll be releasing people from certain ridiculous requirements, and we’ll be using fossil fuel to make electricity because we’re going to have to. We’ll be using nuclear.”

But now that he’s in office—and is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in 2028—will Trump follow through on his mining pledges? Trump is notoriously transactional in his relationships and has a well-documented history of not honoring his debts to contractors once they’ve done the work they were hired to do.

Trump himself told the Nashville audience that, after being told how many people were involved in crypto, his campaign team told him, “let’s be nice to them, at least until after the election.” Any miners expecting a payoff here should probably give generously to Trump’s inaugural committee/slush fund, just to be sure.

There’s no question that the mining economy currently involves pushing rocks uphill (financially speaking). This week, BTC mining difficulty jumped over 6%, pushing it over the 100 trillion mark for the first time. The seven-day moving average also hit a new record of 755.5 EH/s last week and shows no sign of letting up.

The unprecedented difficulty adjustments will put further pressure on smaller mining operators and/or those whose fleets are equipped with less modern (and thus less capable) rigs. The consolidation wave that has swept over this sector in the past couple of years will only increase as this Darwinian struggle weeds out the weaklings.

In the meantime, here are the October performances by some of the most prominent publicly-traded BTC miners, in descending order of magnitude in BTC production:

It remains to be seen what impact (if any) Trump’s return to the White House might have on a new U.S. Treasury/Defense Department final rule on “certain real estate transactions by foreign persons near more than 60 military bases and installations across 30 states.”

The rule follows the federal government shutting down a mining operation near the Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming earlier this year due to national security concerns. That operation was run by Chinese-owned MineOne and, given recent incidents of Chinese espionage on U.S. soil, it was thought that the miners’ location a mere mile away from a nuclear missile base was more than a little iffy.

While most U.S. mining sites are run by U.S. operators, Bitdeer calls Singapore home. Bitdeer has sites in three U.S. states, but none are within the new rule’s exclusion zones. However, the new rules will limit Bitdeer’s freedom to plunk a new installation anywhere near any site the U.S. military deems sensitive.

However, since most U.S. operators employ mining gear manufactured outside America, the language in that MineOne shutdown order could prove problematic. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (