Gate Research Institute: In-depth Analysis of the Impact of Tariff Policies on Bitcoin Mining

This report focuses on three main modules: Mining Rig manufacturing, self-operated Mining Farms, and Cloud Mining. It comprehensively analyzes the changing trends and potential risks in the global mining landscape from the perspectives of Supply Chain, cost structure, geopolitical shifts, and stock price performance, while also assessing the feedback mechanism of policy impacts on the medium to long-term price structure of Bitcoin.

Written by: Gate Research

Summary

● In April 2025, the Trump administration announced the launch of a "reciprocal tariff" policy, imposing a 10% "minimum baseline tariff" on global trading partners, which triggered severe turmoil in global risk assets.

● Bitcoin, as the main public chain that adopts the PoW (Proof of Work) mechanism, relies on physical Mining Rigs for mining. The Mining Rigs are not on the U.S. tariff exemption list, and therefore mining companies face significant cost pressure.

● The decline of mining rig manufacturers in the past month has been particularly noticeable, primarily due to the impact of tariff policies on both the supply and demand sides of mining rig manufacturing.

● The self-operated Mining Farm is mainly influenced by the supply side, and the business process of selling Bitcoin to cryptocurrency exchanges is less affected by tariff policies.

● Cloud Mining Farms are relatively less affected by tariff policies, because the essence of Cloud Mining is to transfer the mining rig purchase costs to customers through computing power service fees. Therefore, the erosion of platform profits is significantly weaker than that of traditional mining models.

● Although tariff policies have hit the Bitcoin mining industry in the United States, Bitcoin spot ETF funds represented by BlackRock IBIT and U.S. stock companies hoarding coins represented by MicroStrategy still hold the pricing power of Bitcoin.

● The price of Bitcoin is no longer the sole indicator; policy trends, geopolitical security, energy scheduling, and manufacturing stability are the true keys to the survival of mining.

Keywords: Gate Research, Tariffs, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Mining

Introduction

On April 2, the Trump administration announced the launch of a "reciprocal tariff" policy, imposing a uniform 10% "minimum benchmark tariff" on global trade partners and adding "personalized" high tariffs on countries with significant trade deficits. This policy triggered severe fluctuations in global risk assets, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both experiencing their largest single-day declines since March 2020; the cryptocurrency industry's assets also shrank significantly. After Trump announced the tariff policy, China declared an 84% retaliatory tariff on the U.S., and the European Union imposed a 25% tariff on $21 billion worth of U.S. goods, resulting in a total evaporation of over $10 trillion in global stock market value in just one week.

On April 9, the tariff policy reversed, with Trump announcing a 90-day suspension of tariffs on 75 countries excluding China, while the EU simultaneously paused tariffs and began negotiations with the US. On that day, the S&P 500 rose by 9.51%, the Nasdaq rose by 12.02%, Bitcoin's price rebounded by 8.19% to $82,500, and Ethereum's price recovered to $1,650.

Among the many tracks of crypto assets, Bitcoin mining has become one of the most directly affected economic modules of the tariff policy due to its strong dependence on hardware equipment, wide global supply chain, and high capital intensity. The global trade friction triggered by the reciprocal tariffs of the United States has caused multiple shocks to the crypto mining industry. Since most of the world's bitcoin mining machines are manufactured in China, the tariff war between China and the United States will push up the import cost of mining machines, and China's export tax rate to the United States will rise to 145%, which will compress the expansion plan of North American mining farms; The depreciation of the renminbi has exacerbated the pressure on the US dollar bonds of Chinese mining companies, coupled with the fluctuation of electricity and energy prices, and the operating costs have continued to rise. At the same time, the fluctuation of the currency price caused miners' income also had an impact on miners, and the price of Bitcoin retraced from $82,500 before the tariffs were announced to below $75,000.

On a macro level, concerns about stagflation from the Federal Reserve combined with risk-averse sentiment have kept the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield high, suppressing risk appetite. The financing environment is tightening, and mining company stock prices have fallen in line with the technology sector. In the context of geopolitical tensions, global mining layouts are facing reconstruction, and companies may accelerate their shift to tariff-friendly regions such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In the short term, policy uncertainty will continue to amplify Bitcoin mining risks, and the industry may enter a new round of reshuffling.

1. Bitcoin mining is directly impacted by tariff policies, with most related companies' stock prices falling more than the NASDAQ 100 index.

Bitcoin, as the main public chain that adopts the PoW (Proof of Work) mechanism, is also the highest market capitalization cryptocurrency and is widely regarded as "digital gold." Since the PoW mechanism relies on physical Mining Rigs for mining, and Mining Rigs and their key upstream components such as semiconductors are not on the tariff exemption list, relevant mining enterprises therefore face significant cost pressures. The upstream impact brought by tariff policies may indirectly affect the medium to long-term trend of Bitcoin prices through cost transmission mechanisms.

The main ecosystem of Bitcoin mining includes Mining Rigs, self-operated Mining Farms, and Cloud Mining farms. Mining rig companies include Bitmain, Canaan Creative (NASDAQ: CAN), Bitmicro, and Ebang International (NASDAQ: EBON), among others. The main factories of several companies are located in mainland China. Among them, Bitmain occupies a significant share of the mining rig market (its prospectus disclosed that its market share exceeded 70% in 2018).

Self-operated mining farm companies include Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: MARA), Riot Platform (NASDAQ: RIOT), Cleanspark (NASDAQ: CLSK), among others. The self-operated mining enterprises listed on NASDAQ are all headquartered in the United States, but their mining farms are distributed across multiple countries including the United States, the UAE, and Paraguay. Marathon owns the largest mining farm in the world, with a total computing power of over 54EH/s, accounting for approximately 6% of the current total network computing power.

The main companies in the Cloud Mining sector include Antpool, Bitdeer(NASDAQ: BTDR), BitFufu(NASDAQ:BFBF), Ecos, and others. Unlike self-operated mining farms, Cloud Mining farms transfer part of the risk of Bitcoin price fluctuations to individual or institutional customers by packaging and selling the computing power required for mining. The platform itself focuses on site selection, construction, and daily operations of the mining farm. Bitdeer has a portion of self-operated mining farms and a portion of Cloud Mining business. BitFufu only has Cloud Mining business.

Affected by Trump's tariff policy, the stock prices of companies related to Bitcoin mining have fallen. Their decline exceeds that of the NASDAQ 100 index. Using data from Yahoo's yfinance database, I collected the closing prices of 8 Bitcoin mining-related companies over the past month, as well as the NASDAQ 100 index as a benchmark. On April 2, when Trump announced the tariff policy, the stock prices of Bitcoin mining-related companies dropped significantly. However, on April 9, after Trump announced a 90-day delay in implementing the tariff policy, the stock prices of Bitcoin mining-related companies showed a noticeable rebound.

After standardization, since the announcement of the tariff policy on April 2, the mining rig sector has seen the most significant decline in Bitcoin mining, with Canaan Creative down over 17% and Ebang International down over 11%. Following that is the self-operated mining farm sector, with Core Scientific leading the decline, down more than 10% in the past month; Marathon's decline is only 0.8%, the lowest in this sector. Finally, the impact on cloud mining farms is relatively small, with BitFufu only down 5.9%. The NASDAQ100 index, used as a benchmark, has dropped by 2.2%.

Table 1: Performance of Bitcoin Mining Companies and Nasdaq 100 Index (NDX) Over the Last Month

2. Analysis of the Impact of Tariff Policies on Various Segments of Bitcoin Mining

After Trump announced the tariff policy, Bitcoin mining-related companies experienced varying degrees of decline. However, as mentioned above, the stock price performance of different sub-sectors also showed a certain degree of differentiation. The core reason for this is that various links in the Bitcoin mining supply chain are subject to different levels of tariffs.

Figure 1: Bitcoin Mining Core Supply Chain

2.1 Mining Rig Manufacturer

From the performance of stock prices, the decline of mining rig manufacturers in the past month has been the most significant, with the core reason being that mining rig manufacturing has been hit by tariff policies on both the supply and demand sides. The upstream of mining rig production includes foundries such as TSMC, Samsung, and SMIC. Mining rig companies first independently complete the IC design of ASIC chips, then deliver the blueprints to foundries for tape-out. After successful tape-out, the foundries will mass-produce the ASIC chips, and the mining rig companies will receive the chips and package them into mining rigs.

TSMC occupies 64.9% of the market share in the chip foundry sector【1】. The Trump administration has demanded that TSMC build factories in the United States, or else it will impose tariffs exceeding 100%【2】. Other foundries such as SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, and Samsung are also under pressure from high tariffs imposed by the United States. Foundries only have two choices: pay tariffs or reduce orders from the United States. Either choice will lead to a decline in the profits of the foundries. This pressure may be transferred to downstream mining rig manufacturers, forcing producers to pay higher prices to improve the gross margin of orders from foundries.

From the demand side, due to the registration locations of companies such as Bitmain, Canaan Creative, and BitMicro being in China, American mining farms like Marathon, Riot, and Cleanspark have to bear high tariffs when purchasing mining rigs, resulting in higher costs. Therefore, in the short term, there will be a noticeable shrinkage in orders for mining rigs. Taking Bitmain's flagship model Antminer S21 Pro and Canaan Creative's flagship model Avalon A15 Pro as examples. Before the tariff policy is implemented, assuming an electricity cost of $0.043/KWH (Cleanspark's electricity cost for 2024)【3】, with the total network computing power at 850EH/s【4】, and the depreciation period for mining rigs being 30 months【5】, currently the cost for the S21 Pro to mine one Bitcoin is $68,367, while the cost for the A15 Pro to mine one Bitcoin is $75,801.

Table 2: Main Mining Rig Parameters of Bitcoin Mining

![](https://img.gateio.im/social/moments-1cd0b8d5ac8f6f815e77ef2c0e4e3737(

Note 1: The main calculation formula is as follows:

Total mined coins = Mining Rig Computing Power × 60 × 24 × 365 × Depreciation Years × Block Reward / 10 / Total Network Computing Power / 1,000,000

Total Cost = Mining Rig Price + Mining Rig Computing Power × Mining Rig Power Consumption × Electricity Cost × 24 × 365 / 1,000 (excluding personnel and site rental costs)

Mining Cost = Total Cost / Cumulative Coin Quantity

Once the tariff policy is implemented, in an optimistic scenario, the selling price of exported Mining Rigs will increase by 30% from the original basis, resulting in a cost of $80,105 for each Bitcoin mined by the S21 Pro, and a cost of $88,717 for each Bitcoin mined by the A15 Pro. In a pessimistic scenario, if the selling price of exported Mining Rigs increases by 70% from the original basis, the cost will be $95,756 for each Bitcoin mined by the S21 Pro, and $105,938 for each Bitcoin mined by the A15 Pro.

Table 3: Mining Cost of Mining Rigs under Different Tariff Scenarios

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The above prices do not take into account the complex operating costs of the Mining Farm, which include venue rental costs and personnel costs. Including this part of the costs will further increase the cost of mining coins. A significant increase in tariffs will burden the Mining Farm with higher mining costs, and a weakening on the demand side will also have a major impact on upstream Mining Rig manufacturers.

From a long-term perspective, mining rig manufacturers may prioritize regions with favorable tariff policies for capacity layout. By implementing a global capacity allocation strategy, they can effectively avoid potential tariff policy risks and achieve supply chain cost optimization.

) 2.2 Self-operated Mining Farm

Compared to mining rig manufacturers being squeezed by both supply and demand sides, self-operated mining farms are mainly affected by the supply side, and the business process of selling Bitcoin to cryptocurrency exchanges is less impacted by tariff policies. The price of Bitcoin is influenced by tariff policies and the funding aversion to uncertainty, leading to a short-term capital outflow and a significant drop in Bitcoin. However, self-operated mining farms represented by Marathon, when cash flow is sufficient, choose a hoarding strategy and do not immediately sell Bitcoin on the exchange after mining. Similar to MicroStrategy's strategy of borrowing to buy coins, Marathon has issued convertible bonds multiple times to directly purchase Bitcoin. Therefore, large mining farms are relatively less affected by the drop in Bitcoin prices.

For small mining farms with tight cash flow, the decline in Bitcoin prices has a particularly significant impact on their stock prices. Due to limited funds, these farms typically cannot hold the Bitcoin they mine for long and can only sell it immediately after mining to maintain operational funds. During market downturns, this "mine and sell" strategy may exacerbate selling pressure in the market, further affecting the price trend of Bitcoin. As shown in the figure below, the number of Bitcoins held by Cipher and Hive as of March 2025 was 1,034 and 2,201, respectively, down 40% and 3% year-on-year; while Marathon and Riot held 47,531 and 19,223 Bitcoins, respectively, up 173% and 126% year-on-year.

Table 4: Changes in the Number of Coins Held by Self-operated Mining Farm Companies (From January 2024 to March 2025)

![]###https://img.gateio.im/social/moments-57d7a712f115bdad301e977d340cfa0f(

In the past month, the stock price fluctuations of small and medium-sized self-operated mining farms Cipher and Hive Digital since the announcement of the tariff policy were -7.1% and -5.5% respectively, with the decline in stock prices significantly exceeding that of large mining farms like Marthon that adhere to the coin-holding strategy.

However, in the long term, the depreciation cycle for mining equipment is typically 2.5 to 3 years, which means that self-operated mines need to make ongoing capital expenditures (CAPEX) to purchase new mining rigs to replace older equipment. Although different mining companies use different statistical calibers when disclosing computing power data (such as monthly average computing power, power-on computing power, month-end computing power, etc.), it is difficult to directly compare computing power indicators between different companies. From January 2024 to March 2025, the computing power data disclosed by mainstream listed mining companies shows that their computing power growth rate generally exceeds 70%. The core driver of the continuous growth of computing power lies in "relative competitiveness": in the context of the continuous increase in computing power of the whole network, if the computing power of the mining farm itself does not increase, the amount of bitcoin it can mine will continue to decline. Bitcoin mining is a dynamic game, and the expansion of computing power is like sailing against the current, and if you don't advance, you will retreat.

In this context, if the tax policy on mining rigs is officially implemented, the cost pressure on upstream mining rig manufacturers will inevitably be passed down to downstream mining farms, further increasing the marginal production costs of the industry and posing a challenge to the profitability of medium-sized mining farms.

) 2.3 Cloud Mining Mining Farm

Cloud Mining Farms are essentially a rental model, with upstream being Mining Rig manufacturers and downstream being individual and institutional clients. Cloud Mining Farms do not hold or sell coins, but instead package and sell Computing Power for 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days to clients, who will choose to either accumulate or sell coins based on their own judgment. Therefore, Cloud Mining Farms primarily earn service fees paid by clients and do not directly bear the profits or losses brought by Bitcoin price fluctuations.

The core competitiveness of Cloud Mining farms lies in reducing leasing, electricity, and labor costs through optimized site selection, while maintaining a high degree of flexibility in computing power deployment to respond to market fluctuations—rapidly expanding Mining Rigs and space to meet customer demand during bull markets, and streamlining operations and converting redundant computing power to self-mining during bear markets. This dynamic balancing capability directly determines the company's market competitiveness.

The income of cloud mining companies is mainly driven by the overall network computing power. When the overall network computing power rises, it indicates that most miners are optimistic about the future price of Bitcoin, or more customers choose to purchase cloud mining; when the overall network computing power declines, it means that miners are not optimistic about the price trend of Bitcoin, and the portion of cloud mining in the overall network computing power will also decrease. The data in the chart below shows that after Trump announced the tariff policy on April 2, the daily average overall network computing power of Bitcoin even reached a historical high on April 5, breaking through 1 ZH/s for the first time. 【12】

Figure 2: Bitcoin Network Computing Power Changes (January 2025 to April 2025)

![]###https://img.gateio.im/social/moments-343bc9f8c77271c27c26acae8d6cc4f2(

From a cost perspective, although the price of mining rigs is under upward pressure due to tariff policies, the leasing business model of Cloud Mining Farms inherently possesses a risk buffer mechanism — it essentially transfers the mining rig acquisition costs to customers through computing power service fees, and some customers directly share the hardware investment through mining rig hosting agreements, making the erosion of platform profits by mining rig premiums significantly weaker than traditional mining models. This cost transfer and sharing characteristic makes Cloud Mining Farms a sector that is less impacted under the tariff policies of the Trump administration.

3. The Impact of Reshaping the Bitcoin Mining Landscape on Bitcoin Prices

The United States has recently imposed tariffs on Bitcoin mining equipment imported from China and other countries, significantly increasing the operating costs for American miners. This provides greater potential opportunities for non-American companies to enter the Bitcoin mining industry, as they can procure China-made mining rigs from other countries at lower costs, thus gaining a cost advantage. Although American mining farms can mitigate some of the tariff impacts by establishing operational bases overseas, it is undeniable that these tariff policies have increased the operational costs and policy risks for domestic mining farms.

According to the above reasoning, the daily Bitcoin output is 450 coins, and the miners extracting Bitcoin will become more diversified, with the influence of American mining companies like Marathon, Riot, and Cleanspark potentially declining. Due to the past practices of large mining companies like Marathon adopting a coin hoarding strategy, the holding attitude of other countries' potential entrants into the mining industry towards Bitcoin remains unclear, and they may opt for a "mine and sell" strategy (immediately withdrawing coins after mining Bitcoin and selling them on exchanges). From this perspective, high tariff policies overall have a negative impact on Bitcoin's price trend. Some mining farms leaving the United States ultimately contradicts the original intention proposed by Trump — to ensure that all remaining Bitcoins achieve "Made in America."

However, in the long run, the core logic of Bitcoin underwent a fundamental change in 2024. Bitcoin spot ETF funds represented by BlackRock's IBIT and Bitcoin-hoarding companies represented by MicroStrategy still hold the pricing power of Bitcoin. As of April 2025, IBIT holds 570,983 Bitcoins【13】, while MicroStrategy holds 528,185 Bitcoins【14】. The holdings of both entities continue to increase as a percentage of Bitcoin's total circulating supply【15】, and their purchasing power is sufficient to absorb the amount of newly mined Bitcoins produced daily.

Table 5: MicroStrategy and IBIT's Bitcoin Holdings and Proportions

![])https://img.gateio.im/social/moments-5f7563d342b48ccc1de3f7f5c5d6e9af(

Summary

The Trump administration's promotion of a "reciprocal tariff" policy poses dual challenges to the Bitcoin mining industry in terms of upstream costs and geopolitical layout. Mining rig manufacturers are under the most pressure due to restrictions in the supply chain and reduced demand. Self-operated mining farms face dual squeezes from rising costs and increased capital expenditures, while cloud mining farms have relatively better buffering capacity relying on a "risk transfer" mechanism. Overall, the expansion pace of North American mining may be limited, and global computing power is likely to further disperse to low-tariff regions such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East, potentially leading to a temporary decline in the voice of U.S. mining companies within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Mining enterprises often invest heavily, have long cycles, and possess weak risk resistance; the Bitcoin network itself cannot actively adjust these risks, as its mechanism is "open, fair, and competitive," rather than "defensive, adaptive, and regulatory." This creates a structural contradiction: the most decentralized asset globally has an industrial chain behind it that is one of the areas most susceptible to centralized policy intervention. Therefore, mining participants must re-evaluate the importance of policy. The price of Bitcoin is no longer the only indicator; policy trends, geopolitical security, energy scheduling, and manufacturing stability are the true keys to survival in mining.

In the short term, the rising mining costs combined with some miners' "mine, withdraw, and sell" behavior may pose marginal bearish pressure on Bitcoin prices; however, in the medium to long term, institutional forces represented by BlackRock's IBIT and MicroStrategy have become the dominant force in the market, and their continuous buying power is expected to offset supply pressure and stabilize market structure. The Bitcoin mining industry is at a critical juncture of policy reformation and structural transition, and global investors need to closely monitor the policy evolution and the industry chain rebalancing brought about by computing power migration.

Data Source

1. Patent PC,

2.Reuters,

3. Cleanspark,

4.Bitinfocharts,

5.CoinShares Research,

6. Bitmain,

7. Canaan,

8. Marathon Digital,

9. Riot Platform,

10. Cipher,

11. Hive Digital

12. Bitinforcharts,

#3m

13. iShares,

14. Bitbo,

15. Finance M Square

Bitcoin Mining Core Supply Chain