President Donald Trump Said at a 2024 Campaign Event That He Wanted All Remaining Bitcoin

President Donald Trump said at a 2024 campaign event that he wanted all remaining bitcoin, about 1.15 million units out of the original 21 million supply

The Trump administration's decision to impose reciprocal tariffs on a wide range of goods from U.S. trading partners may have been a surprising move, but it could have serious implications for bitcoin miners operating in the U.S. As a result of these tariffs, which are set to take effect on April 9, miners will be forced to pay a hefty price to import machines from countries like Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, ranging from 24% to 46% of the original value.

This news comes at a particularly bad time for miners, who are already struggling with the fallout from the recent market downturn. Hashprice, a term used to assess mining profitability, or the amount of bitcoin earned from a unit of energy, continues to set all-time lows as competition rises, but the payoff in terms of new bitcoin is lower than ever before. At current prices, which are up 37% over the past 12 months and in the $84,000 range, miners are still profitably producing bitcoin and they are not in danger of having to liquidate further assets to pay off debt or massively subsidize operations.

These dire economic circumstances leave American miners in a difficult position. According to multiple sources, they comprise about 40% of the total global hashrate, or mining power, on the Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) network. If they want to keep pace with the global network, they will need to import machines and pay the tariffs, or leave them unplugged in Asian warehouses.

“I’m seeing a lot of confusion from everybody, even at the highest levels. No one really knows what’s going on,” says Taras Kulyk, CEO of Synteq Digital, an official distributor for Bitmain (BTC: BITMAIN), the world’s largest bitcoin miner manufacturer. “No one really understands what — for the lack of a better term — ‘strategy’ is being implemented right now. It seems like chaos, not even controlled or organized chaos. No 5D chess anymore. It just seems like complete, ridiculous chaos.”

If there is any silver lining for bitcoin miners, it is that overcoming a number of challenges in recent years has strengthened them. After being given a gift from the Chinese government in May 2021, when it kicked all miners out of the country, leading to a 42% drop in hashrate, bitcoin miners have faced an onslaught of challenges.

The first came from a suite of bitcoin-proxy substitutes that suddenly became competitors for investor dollars. Notably, Strategy (NASDAQ:MAGA), formerly known as MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), has become a spirit animal for the bitcoin industry with its bitcoin accumulation strategy. The company currently owns 528,185 bitcoin, worth $44.8 billion, and is sitting on a paper gain of $9 billion. Its stock more than quadrupled in 2024. A rash of copycat firms like Semler Scientific (NASDAQ:SEML), Metaplanet (NASDAQ:MPLAN) and Genius Group (NYSE:GENI) have all followed suit.

And they are able to fund most of these purchases through at-the-market stock offerings or zero-coupon convertible debt, meaning that investors are lending billions of dollars at zero interest to these companies so that they can buy bitcoin right now. This stands in stark relief to bitcoin miners who have to pay massive upfront costs to purchase miners, power generation, facilities, and address various overhead costs. All for a payoff that needs to be projected out 12-24 months in the future.

Moreover, many miners had to sell newly minted bitcoin and bitcoin held on their balance sheet during the bear market of 2022 and early 2023 to maintain operations. This means that they were unable to reap the subsequent gains in bitcoin's jump above $100,000 for those tokens.

The second hit came from the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs in January, led by the likes of BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) and Fidelity, which have accumulated more than $100 billion worth of bitcoin themselves. All of this meant that public bitcoin mining stocks suddenly had competition for investors who wanted exposure to bitcoin, as well as leveraged or high-beta exposure, after operating as an oligopoly for years.

The final blow came in April with the introduction of Trump's reciprocal tariffs. In response to tariffs imposed by U.S. trading partners, the administration announced plans to impose tariffs of 25% on a range of goods from those countries, including textiles, furniture, and chemical products. The tariffs are set to take effect on April 9, but could be postponed by 90 days if the trading partners agree to eliminate their tariffs.

However, the tariffs will also apply to goods that are not covered by the original tariffs, such as machinery and equipment used by bitcoin miners. This means that miners