THE MINING POD: Crisis Over? U.S. CBP & Bitcoin ASIC Importation
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Seized machines from Bitcoin miners are slowly being released. Is that the Trump affect or is more to come?
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Welcome back to The Mining Pod! Today, hosts Colin and Will dive into the ongoing saga of US Customs and Border Protection seizing Bitcoin mining hardware at various ports of entry. Initially targeting Antminer units in late 2024, the seizures expanded to include equipment from Whatsminer and Canaan, costing some companies millions in detained assets. The hosts explore how industry lobbying - particularly through Senator Lummis and connections to the Trump administration - has begun to resolve the situation, along with theories about why these unprecedented seizures occurred in the first place. Could this push more manufacturing onshore?
Notes:
- $5 million worth of hardware seized from one company
- Seizures expanded beyond Antminer to Whatsminer/Canaan
- Detentions began Sep 2024, escalated to seizures Feb 2025
- Shipments being released after industry lobbying
- Sen. Lummis and White House helped resolve situation
- CBP cited unauthorized communications equipment laws
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
02:17 History of seizure trend
09:08 Lobbying the government for release
17:42 Follow on effects
20:13 Bitmain plans
24:20 Conspiracy corner: Evil or Entropy
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, welcome back to the mining pod. We're going to talk about the USCBP. We're going to be talking about |
| 0:04.9 | Bitcoin miners, having their unit Cs. I'm going to talk about how this all relates to the new Trump |
| 0:10.5 | administration right after a word from our sponsors. |
| 0:13.9 | Are you retail or institutional investor interested in Bitcoin mining companies? |
| 0:17.5 | The miner mag brings you free data and analysis from all major NASDAQ listed |
| 0:21.1 | Bitcoin mining operations to know who stands out. Check out visualized metrics and data-dependent |
| 0:25.9 | stories at theminermag.com. Today's show is brought to you by Digital Shovel. Digital |
| 0:32.1 | Shovel is a leading manufacturer of modular mining pods as well as PDUs and switch gears. Unlike many other competitors, |
| 0:38.6 | their product is designed to manufacture in North America with a complete UL inspection on the entire |
| 0:43.4 | units, not just individual components. Additionally, Digital Shovel is one of the most vertically |
| 0:48.5 | integrated manufacturers. Of over 75,000 square feet of sheet metal shop, SMT, and wave solder PCB assembly, as well as final assembly all under one roof in Toronto, Canada. |
| 0:59.9 | Their price point leads the industry when compared to products with rates as low as $69,000 per megawatt for a complete data center with smart PDUs and switchgears. |
| 1:08.1 | To learn more, visit digitalshubble.com. |
| 1:14.2 | Okay, Colin and I are back from a weekend. We're energized, or caffeinated, and we are ready |
| 1:18.5 | to do a short podcast this Monday morning. It's coming out early Eastern hours. And we're talking |
| 1:24.3 | about the USCBP,. Customs Border Protection Agency that was |
| 1:31.0 | seizing Bitcoin miners from private, public brokers. We broke this news on Blockspace about |
| 1:37.1 | two weeks ago. We had a first reporting about it in September of last year. But new reports from |
| 1:42.9 | brokers and other people in the space indicate that the |
| 1:45.8 | USCPP is now trying to release these Bitcoin miners, likely due to lobbyist pressure from |
| 1:53.1 | Bitcoin miners themselves. So we're going to get into this, that, and the other thing. |
| 1:58.1 | Colin, I'll hand it to you first just to give kind of some of the information |
... |
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