Bitmain units are being halted at U.S. ports

The Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) is holding certain imports of Antminer ASICs at ports of entry to the United States, Blockspace has learned.

According to seven U.S.-based bitcoin mining companies who spoke with Blockspace on the condition of anonymity, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has requested the CBP to hold certain shipments of Bitmain ASIC miners at ports of entry. The CBP has held some of these shipments for two months, and the hold ups are “happening nationwide,” said one source, including at ports in San Francisco and Detroit. 

The imports in question are for Bitmain’s Antminer S21 and T21 series, the latest series of ASIC miners from Bitmain. Sources claimed that the FCC and CBP are not targeting other ASIC manufacturers like MicroBT or Canaan. Beyond revealing that the FCC requested the freeze, the CBP did not provide a specific reason for the action, nor a timeline for how long it would hold the shipments, to the affected parties.  

One source, whose shipment holds “are now approaching months,” mentioned that “CBP holds extending beyond 30 days with no clear requests of the Importer of Record (IOR) are beyond usual service standards and extremely rare.” They continued to say that they had observed Advanced Targeting Unit (ATU) personnel at certain ports of entry related to the holds, and that some companies have started recommending others to avoid certain ports of entry, specifically those on the West Coast. 

Another source said that the CBP is holding some 200 units. The CBP and FCC have not only ignored the company’s requests for information, but they are charging a daily holding fee that has ballooned to over $200,000. The company has now engaged a legal firm to ascertain information from the FCC. 

Established in 1934, the FCC regulates domestic and international communications and their related industries. In the age of the internet, this domain has extended to computing hardware, which includes bitcoin mining computers. The CBP was established in 2003 under the banner of the Department of Homeland Security and, among other things, it oversees U.S. importations.  

These mass shipment freezes are unprecedented for bitcoin miners, and our sources were unsure why exactly the imports are being held up. One conjectured that the halts might have to do with Antminer control boards that use chips from Sophgo. The company is under scrutiny after allegedly violating U.S. sanctions for supplying chips to Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that has been under the yoke of U.S. sanctions since 2019, and it shares a CEO, Micree Zhan, with Bitmain. After a Sophgo chip was discovered on a Huawei device, TSMC cut off business relations with the company. 

There is no clear evidence to substantiate the claim that the import halts are related to scrutiny of Sophgo, but our sources confirmed that Bitmain does use a Sophgo chip, the CV1835, in the Antminer T21 and certain S19 series ASICs, including the S19k Pro, S19 XP, S19 Pro, and certain S19j Pro models. Given that Sophgo may be under investigation by the Department of Commerce, this has led to speculation that the FCC and CBP are holding shipments to check them for these chips. It’s worth noting that Bitmain sources control boards from a variety of vendors, so just because a Bitmain used the CV1835 chip for some models, it does not mean that every unit of that model houses the chip in question.

Blockspace sent an inquiry to the FCC regarding the news and received a reply after publication; the media representative for the FCC said that the agency was unaware of any orders to halt Bitmain hardware. Blockspace also sought comment from various ports of entry but did not receive comment.

Update November 25, 2024 3:15pm EST: Updated with background information from the FCC.