Despite US President Donald Trump’s vision of technological superiority, America’s grip on Bitcoin mining is waning as companies race to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence, creating opportunities for countries such as China.
A recent report found that in 2025, North American pools where miners combine their computing power to solve blocks and increase their chances of earning block rewards will see a consistent decline in block share, or the percentage of total Bitcoin blocks successfully mined. report From BlocksBridge Consulting.
As of December, BlocksBridge said Foundry USA, MARA Pool, and Luxor Technologies accounted for 35% of all Bitcoin blocks, down from over 40% in January of last year.
The decline follows President Trump’s call for all remaining Bitcoin to be mined in the United States in 2024. Although the feat was described by some as impossible, it confirmed the president’s vision for a prosperous industry that has been controversial in the past for its potential long-term impact on communities and the environment.
The president’s sons are also pushing ahead with their own Bitcoin mining company, American Bitcoin, as the rapid growth of data centers overshadows these concerns in various U.S. states. Eric Trump Jr. and Donald Trump Jr. co-founded the company last March, and Miami-based Hut8 owns an 80% majority stake.
Hut 8, which used to specialize in Bitcoin mining, has increasingly positioned itself as an energy infrastructure company. In December, the Miami-based company announced it would work with AI company Anthropic to develop the infrastructure for its massive U.S. data center.
A month ago, Eric Trump was standing on the floor of American Bitcoin’s Texas-based mining facility. he posted video He was shown speaking at X himself as 35,000 mining machines spun in the background, highlighting how the company mines “approximately 2%” of the world’s Bitcoin supply.
Bitcoin mining is a competitive process in which specialized computers constantly process complex calculations to verify transactions and secure the network in exchange for newly minted Bitcoins. Over time, major companies have seen their profit margins come under pressure.
According to a recent JPMorgan report, average daily revenue for Bitcoin miners in December was 1EH/s, or $38,700 per exahash per second, down 32% year-on-year. This metric reflects how the profitability of Bitcoin mining is at a record low level when taking into account the impact of energy prices, which have increased significantly over the past year.
Nick Hansen, co-founder and CEO of Luxor Technology, which provides Bitcoin mining software and financial services, said declining profitability among many companies is driving a multi-year shift toward meeting the needs of AI companies. decryption.
“All Bitcoin miners now have a fiduciary responsibility to evaluate the feasibility of AI for their current power assets,” he said. “The demand for AI is so high that it dwarfs Bitcoin mining in terms of scale and potential scope.”
Meanwhile, China is rapidly increasing its power generation capacity. In other words, the decline in North America’s block share is, in a sense, a withdrawal from American companies, as well as a problem with the country’s energy expansion.
“We can use the proliferation of Bitcoin mining to replace domestic energy infrastructure,” he said. “They have more energy, which means they can compete for Bitcoin blocks. This is like a buyer of last resort for energy.”
Movement in Xinjiang
Over the past few years, Bitcoin miners have essentially been locked in an arms race as they scale up their operations, but that is changing, according to Wolfie Chao, head of research at Broxbridge Consulting. And that presents opportunities for countries like China, he said. decryption.
“Many (publicly traded) miners have paused hashrate expansion, and some are converting their Bitcoin mining power capacity to (high performance computing),” he said. Hash rate refers to the computational resources put into the Bitcoin network.
Zhao, who lives in Hong Kong, said that in recent months there has been a resurgence in hashrate in China, particularly in Xinjiang province. However, Bitcoin mining has been officially banned in China since 2021, and new surveillance was recently reported in December. block space media.
Still, Zhao said Xinjiang is highly dispersed and generates large amounts of electricity from burning fossil fuels. Although it is impossible to know the exact scale of the province’s operations, Zhao said some people ignore the restrictions and gamble with Bitcoin because the province is far from Beijing.
“There is no question that these things are still happening in Xinjiang,” Zhao said, noting that activity in the Middle East and Russia is also contributing to changes in Bitcoin’s hash rate.
Last year, Zhao said companies that make Bitcoin mining machines, such as Bitmain, were facing a “brutal reality” as overall demand for their products cooled. To make up for the drop in revenue, the Beijing-based company was forced to increase mining of Bitcoin itself, he said.
“They needed to utilize their own inventory and connect machines wherever possible,” he said. “It’s probably in the United States, the Middle East, Central Asia.”
Zhao, who controls an estimated 80% of the global market for Bitcoin mining equipment, said Bitmain risks losing future wafer allocations from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) if it decides to scale back production.
“There is an oversupply,” he added. “There aren’t many companies buying at the same scale.”
