U.S. Customs and Border Safety, on the request of the Federal Communications Fee, has been detaining imports of Bitmain’s Antminer ASIC miners at ports nationwide for as much as two months.
The delays have impacted seven U.S.-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining firms with out solutions, based on a report from Blockspace. The detained fashions embody the S21 and T21 sequence miners.
CBP has not disclosed the explanation for the detentions or supplied a timeline for decision. Some affected firms have reported every day holding charges exceeding $200,000.
The holds don’t seem to focus on different ASIC producers, equivalent to MicroBT or Canaan, and are reportedly concentrated at West Coast ports like San Francisco.
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Border delay hypothesis
Business hypothesis suggests the delays could also be associated to scrutiny of chips provided by Xiamen Sophgo, a Chinese language semiconductor firm beneath investigation for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions, based on Blockspace.
Sophgo’s chips, together with the CV1835, are reportedly utilized in sure Antminer fashions, such because the S19 and T21 sequence. Sophgo’s CEO, Micree Zhan, can be a co-founder of Bitmain, elevating questions on potential hyperlinks to the investigation.
The Division of Commerce started investigating Sophgo after discovering a chip linked to the corporate in a Huawei machine. Huawei has confronted U.S. sanctions since 2019 over nationwide safety issues.
Whereas no confirmed hyperlink exists between these sanctions and the detained Antminer shipments, sources speculate the FCC and CBP are inspecting imports for restricted parts.
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