Bitmain, embroiled in controversy, has found its strongest backer in the U.S.
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Bitmain, embroiled in controversy, has found its strongest backer in the U.S.
Bitmain has long been embroiled in controversies over the security of its mining hardware, yet this has not prevented it from engaging in business cooperation with a core member of the U.S. President’s family.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Ryan Weeks, Bloomberg
Translated by Luffy, Foresight News
Bitmain Technologies Co., Ltd.—once deemed a national security threat by the U.S. government and mired in controversy over mining hardware security and remote-control capabilities—is the undisputed global leader in Bitcoin mining equipment. This enigmatic Chinese company, having weathered White House bans and investigations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has unexpectedly forged a major commercial alliance with Eric Trump, the president’s second son.
On one side stands a Chinese mining hardware giant accused of endangering power grids and military installations; on the other, a Bitcoin company backed by the U.S. president’s family. Together, they are building a “super mine” in Texas—launching a high-stakes partnership. This article reconstructs this politically charged, crypto-fueled alliance—and reveals how Bitmain reversed course from the U.S. “blacklist” to become one of the Trump family’s most pivotal business partners. Below is the full translation:
The Mining Empire: Bitmain—Mysterious and Monopolistic
From dedicated data centers in rural Texas to converted timber mills in Borneo, rows of shoebox-sized machines hum loudly—sometimes even drawing complaints from neighbors. Each unit houses hundreds of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), manufactured at great expense in advanced Taiwanese factories. These chips are soldered onto three sealed computing boards and perform brute-force calculations under instructions issued by a control board. Depending on the model, machines use either built-in fans or liquid-cooling systems to prevent overheating—consuming massive amounts of electricity wherever they’re installed.
These devices serve only one purpose: cracking Bitcoin’s underlying SHA-256 algorithm—a so-called one-way function, meaning the only way to solve its mathematical puzzles is through trial and error. Bitcoin miners earn their livelihood this way: once they compute the correct answer, they gain the right to verify others’ transactions and receive Bitcoin rewards. Their profits therefore depend directly on how many calculations per second these devices—marketed as “Antminers”—can attempt: currently trillions per second. A top-tier Antminer sells for as much as $17,400. Large-scale mining firms deploy up to 500,000 units, requiring upfront investments in the billions of dollars—though such capital expenditures pale beside potential returns, at least when cryptocurrency prices are high. Some users liken them to rows of lottery-ticket printers—except with far higher odds of winning.
The Antminer is the flagship product of Bitmain Technologies Co., Ltd. Not only does the company dominate Bitcoin mining hardware production, but for much of its history, it effectively was the industry itself—commanding over 80% market share. Few companies achieve such absolute dominance globally: Alphabet Inc. in search is one example; decades earlier, perhaps De Beers at its peak, controlling over three-quarters of global diamond output; or centuries before that, institutions like the Dutch East India Company, which monopolized long-distance spice trade. Yet unlike those historical monopolists, many aspects of Bitmain remain shrouded in mystery.
Bitmain miners at a Chinese mining farm in 2017
The company is not publicly listed, and its official website discloses neither its global headquarters nor the names of its CEO or board members. Its closest public figure is co-founder Jihan Wu, who rarely appears in public and no longer serves as chairman—though it remains unclear when he stepped down, who succeeded him, or whether a successor was even appointed. Until recently, Bitmain’s spokesperson consistently declined to clarify even the most basic corporate structure and governance information—including the identities of major shareholders. Because the company sells multiple Antminer models across different price tiers, estimates of its annual revenue vary widely. One executive closely involved with Bitmain—who requested anonymity—cited internal research estimating annual sales between $2 billion and $3 billion. Even that figure, however, remains little more than an educated guess.
Two things, however, are certain: First, Bitmain is headquartered in China. Second, it has formed an alliance with one of President Donald Trump’s children. Eric Trump, the president’s second son, is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of American Bitcoin Corp., headquartered in Miami. The company went public in New York last September; his stake was then valued at approximately $548 million. (Since then, its stock has plunged sharply amid broad-based crypto asset selloffs.) His elder brother, Donald Trump Jr., is also an investor, though his shareholding size remains undisclosed. American Bitcoin states it plans to purchase thousands of Bitmain Antminers, aiming ultimately to become the world’s largest Bitcoin mining company—and has already partnered with the Chinese firm to develop a large-scale data center in Texas.
This partnership marks a stunning reversal for Bitmain. Just months earlier, it faced existential challenges: escalating U.S. investigations questioning whether its equipment posed national security threats. In May 2024, the White House ordered the removal of thousands of Bitmain miners from a mining facility near a U.S. Air Force nuclear missile base. Last year, a report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence warned that Bitmain miners located near certain military bases “pose an unacceptable risk.” In November, Bloomberg News reported—citing a U.S. official and other informed sources—that Bitmain had been the focus of an ongoing Department of Homeland Security investigation assessing whether Antminers could be remotely controlled to disrupt power grids or repurposed for espionage. Sources said the probe—codenamed “Operation Red Sun”—began under the Biden administration and continued at least into the early months of Trump’s second term, with national security councils of both administrations having discussed it.
Bitmain did not respond to detailed inquiries about potential security risks. But in a December statement, it said it complies with all applicable laws and that reports about it being under investigation were “seriously inaccurate and constitute false news.” An American Bitcoin spokesperson stated the company “adheres to strict standards regarding national security, grid stability, and operational safety,” and “believes that, when deployed according to modern industrial security standards, mining hardware poses no threat to the U.S. power grid or national security.”
Irene Gao of Bitmain, photographed in 2025
The current status of “Operation Red Sun” remains unclear. The Department of Homeland Security told Bloomberg Businessweek it “cannot comment on ongoing investigations.” Yet Bitmain’s collaboration with American Bitcoin continues unabated—and its aggressive push into the U.S. market shows no signs of slowing. Over recent months, the company has opened up slightly to outsiders. For this article, Bitmain arranged an interview with Global Sales Director Irene Gao. She praised Trump’s pro-crypto policies, saying, “To most of our customers, this is a very good thing.” But when asked simple questions—such as the names of key executives beyond CEO Yang Cunyong—she declined to answer. “We simply don’t want to disclose any company information this way,” Gao said.
The Shadow of Security: U.S. National Security Investigations and Containment
Beyond speculators chasing quick riches, the crypto industry has attracted two types of people since its inception: tech geeks and true believers. The former focus primarily on the computational and mathematical challenges of creating and trading digital assets; the latter are obsessed with these tools’ potential to transform global finance.
The two Chinese entrepreneurs who founded Bitmain fall neatly into these categories. Jihan Wu is a chip designer who previously founded a startup developing TV set-top boxes. Micree Zhan was an investment analyst who later became captivated by cryptocurrency—most notably, translating Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin white paper from English into Chinese. Their partnership began over dinner in Beijing in 2013. Zhan recalled reading about cryptocurrency on Wikipedia the next morning—and immediately deciding to co-found a company with Wu. Multiple individuals familiar with both men—who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal—described shared traits: both are socially awkward, have spent most of their careers operating in extreme obscurity, and rarely appear publicly or grant interviews. Sources said both tend to become irritable under pressure—Zhan, whose voice is low and gravelly, has reportedly been seen shouting at employees in the office loud enough for the entire building to hear.
When Zhan and Wu founded Bitmain in 2013, Bitcoin mining was nothing like today’s landscape dominated by publicly traded mega-data centers. It was a world of hobbyists frantically chasing the latest cutting-edge gear. That year, Bitcoin first broke $1,000—still in its infancy, with the vast majority of tokens yet to be mined. At the time, better miners could still deliver dramatic increases in network-wide hash rate—the metric measuring computing power required to process transactions. As long as miners secured the newest hardware first, profits were virtually guaranteed.
Bitmain employees in 2017
Bitmain launched its first miner—the Antminer S1—in November 2013. By today’s standards, it was extremely rudimentary—even lacking a casing, with computing boards and wiring fully exposed. Yet as one of the earliest ASIC-based miners, it was also the most powerful device available at the time, delivering a quantum leap over competitors and accelerating the industry’s shift toward specialized hardware. Subsequent generations of Antminers improved dramatically—each iteration nearly redefining the market: if miners didn’t buy the latest model, they couldn’t compete at all.
Bitcoin’s price surged over 250% in 2017, further boosting demand for Antminers. A private funding round in mid-2018 valued Bitmain at $12 billion. Its growth drew widespread attention—and in August 2018, even landed its financing proposal on the desk of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Newly released January 2025 Justice Department documents show Epstein urgently sought to invest up to $3 million in Bitmain’s holding company—but expressed concerns about transaction structure. The documents do not indicate whether the investment ultimately materialized.
Shortly after this communication, Bitmain filed for listing in Hong Kong, disclosing $2.5 billion in revenue—up sharply from $137 million two years earlier. The prospectus showed Zhan held about 36% of shares and Wu about 20%, each worth several billion dollars on paper. Other shareholders included Sequoia Capital China, IDG Capital, and Coatue. But betting wealth on rising crypto prices also meant facing disaster when prices fell. As markets crashed again, the listing plan was shelved. The entire industry entered what’s known as the “crypto winter”—a prolonged period of depressed prices. Meanwhile, Zhan and Wu’s partnership fractured. Anonymous insiders said the rift stemmed from strategic disagreements: Zhan wanted Bitmain to enter the artificial intelligence field, adapting its chips for applications like facial recognition training; Wu, a true crypto believer, opposed deviating from the company’s original mission.
At the end of 2019, Wu attempted to seize full control of the company; Zhan was removed as legal representative and chairman of Bitmain. Zhan promptly filed suit in the Cayman Islands—the registered domicile of Bitmain’s holding company. A protracted power struggle followed, culminating in a dramatic physical confrontation at a Beijing government office. Former journalist Hazel Hu witnessed the 2020 incident firsthand. She recalled Zhan waiting at the Haidian District Market Supervision Administration to collect Bitmain’s physical business license when supporters of Zhan and Wu clashed over the document—grappling and wrestling. Police quickly arrived from a nearby precinct to halt the scuffle, which spilled downstairs and onto the street.
The following year, Wu conceded defeat and resigned as Bitmain’s CEO and chairman. (The dispute was eventually settled; Wu now serves as chairman of mining hardware manufacturer Bitdeer Group and a crypto investment platform.) Despite internal turmoil, Bitmain continued expanding—especially after Bitcoin’s price rebounded in 2020. As the mathematical puzzle linking miners and profitability grew increasingly complex, Antminers became essential. “They’re currently the most efficient devices,” said Vishnu Mackenchery, Senior Director of Corporate Development at U.S.-based Compass Mining.
Antminers being assembled at a Shenzhen factory
At the time, Bitmain’s sales were highly concentrated in its domestic market. Data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows China accounted for roughly three-quarters of global Bitcoin mining hash rate in 2019. But in 2021, the Chinese government cracked down severely on crypto mining—citing high energy consumption and carbon emissions. The result was mass exodus by miners, who flocked to regions with relatively cheap electricity and friendly regulatory environments—conditions especially prominent in parts of the United States. As a mining hardware manufacturer—not a miner—Bitmain wasn’t shut down and continued operating in Beijing, establishing distribution centers across Southeast Asia. From then on, however, its future would be decided in America.
Following China’s policy shift, Bitmain intensified sales to U.S. miners and expanded a side business managing mining operations for American clients. To give the company a public face in the U.S., it relocated Irene Gao there. Gao joined Bitmain shortly after graduating university in 2016 and, upon arriving in the U.S., spent years constantly traveling city-to-city with her suitcase, pitching products to clients. Like much else about Bitmain, sales figures and market share during this period remain opaque—but industry veterans say there’s no doubt it was becoming dominant.
Yet the company soon felt the impact of geopolitical tensions. During Trump’s first administration, the White House imposed 25% tariffs on numerous Chinese-made electronics. Bitmain began rerouting shipments through Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia—a common practice among Chinese manufacturers, though U.S. authorities viewed it as violating customs regulations. President Biden largely maintained those tariffs. In 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspected a shipment of Antminers bound for Sphere 3D Corp., a Connecticut-based mining firm. After disassembling one unit, inspectors found tiny “Made in China” labels on internal components. Patricia Trompeter, Sphere 3D’s then-CEO, said the 4,000-unit shipment was detained for three months. Fearing further delays, some miners diversified risk—shifting orders to competitors who’d already established U.S. manufacturing facilities, while Bitmain had not yet done so.
The gravest allegations against Bitmain went far beyond tariff evasion: Could its miners be tampered with for purposes beyond mining? Suspicions circulated in crypto circles as early as 2017, when an industry publication reported Antminers contained embedded code enabling remote shutdown by Bitmain. The company quickly confirmed the code’s existence but insisted its purpose was legitimate—to disable stolen miners, akin to Apple allowing users to lock lost iPhones. Bitmain later said it had removed the feature—but two years later, tech bloggers discovered similar code; the company promptly issued a security patch.
According to an anonymous source familiar with classified deliberations, during the Biden administration, U.S. officials commissioned studies assessing whether Bitmain miners—and other Chinese-made miners—posed national security risks. The source said the investigation pursued two distinct lines: First, whether miners could be used for espionage. Crypto hardware experts consider this possibility extremely unlikely—if not impossible—given their highly specialized engineering. Second—and more concerning to U.S. officials—whether remote shutdown capability could destabilize the U.S. power grid.
When a large electricity consumer—like a steel mill—goes offline, it’s typically a planned, gradual process, with power draw tapering off over two days or more. Bitcoin mining farms consume comparable amounts of electricity—but can shut down in seconds. The source said U.S. officials feared such “shock events” could suddenly unbalance electricity generation and consumption, threatening grid stability. The worst-case scenario: Chinese actors remotely command thousands of Bitmain miners to shut down—while those miners sit near military bases or other critical infrastructure dependent on the same power source. “Anyone who hacks an entire data center—whether AI, crypto, or cloud services—could severely damage the grid,” said Michael Bedford Taylor, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington. Yet he cautioned that Bitmain itself is unlikely to have such motivation.
In spring 2024, the Biden administration publicly voiced security concerns about a mining facility near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Spanning 12 acres, the site hosted up to 15,000 miners—mostly from Bitmain—installed by a company linked to China. Investors hoped it would someday become one of America’s largest mines, benefiting from Wyoming’s low land costs and abundant electricity. Crucially, it sat just one mile from Warren Air Force Base—the Air Force’s installation for land-based nuclear missiles.
On May 13, 2024, Biden issued an executive order mandating MineOne Partners LLC—the facility’s operator—to shut down the project. The order stated the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) had “identified national security risks.” Though it didn’t explicitly cite grid concerns, it noted risks including “specialized foreign-sourced equipment that could facilitate surveillance and espionage.” The miners were swiftly loaded onto trucks and hauled away.
Political Alliance: Partnering with the Trump Family to Stage a Comeback
This was a major, highly public setback—U.S. authorities explicitly linking Bitmain hardware to at least the possibility of malicious use. Yet within months, the company began advancing a project that could fundamentally reshape its fortunes.
A Bitmain mining farm inside China in 2017
According to Michael Ho—a Chinese-Canadian businessman and Eric Trump’s crypto business partner—the series of meetings leading to the president’s son launching a Bitcoin mining company began at the end of 2024. Like Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu, Ho is a true believer—he likes boasting he mined his first Bitcoin as a teenager, well before reaching the legal drinking age. When he met Eric, he and his partner Asher Genoot ran Hut 8 Corp., a Miami-based mining firm and a major customer of Bitmain’s Antminers.
Ho recalled they initially met “through many mutual friends in Florida circles.” He said their relationship rapidly deepened after several meetings in and around Miami—including one discussion at the Jupiter Trump National Golf Club. Eric Trump, a longtime executive in the family’s real estate business, was growing increasingly involved in crypto. After earlier calling Bitcoin a “scam,” his father embraced the industry during his campaign—vowing in Nashville to make the U.S. a “Bitcoin superpower.” In September 2024, the Trump family launched World Liberty Financial—a venture with an ambitious yet vague vision: to “give everyone access to tools and opportunities long denied.”
Initially, World Liberty Financial appeared to fail—speculators largely ignored its debut token. Those tokens granted no rights to company revenue and could not be resold after purchase—contradicting traditional investment logic. But after Trump’s re-election, everything changed: digital asset prices soared, and businesspeople eager to get close to the presidential family and secure resources poured money into its various ventures. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan—a senior member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family—agreed to invest $500 million in World Liberty Financial ahead of the president’s inauguration.
Eric Trump, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of American Bitcoin, and CEO Michael Ho interviewed by Bloomberg Television in New York last September
Ho said convincing Eric to enter mining wasn’t difficult. “Once we met face-to-face and got to know each other better, things clicked quickly,” he told Bloomberg News last year. In March 2025, the pair unveiled their intricately structured plan to the public. Just one month earlier, Eric and Donald Jr. had co-founded American Data Centers. Now, Hut 8 would acquire 80% of that company—not with cash or stock—but using miners as payment. After acquiring all of Hut 8’s Bitmain miners, American Data Centers was renamed American Bitcoin. Investor presentations declared the new entity’s goal: “to become the world’s largest and most efficient dedicated Bitcoin mining company while building a robust strategic Bitcoin reserve.”
Within months, American Bitcoin decided to go public—not via a traditional IPO with its rigorous disclosures and scrutiny—but through a merger with small firm Gryphon Digital Mining Inc. This approach is commonly adopted by crypto companies and accepted by regulators. Ho serves as CEO; Genoot as Executive Chairman. Eric oversees business strategy—but given his extensive other commercial interests, his time commitment is expected to be limited. An American Bitcoin spokesperson said Eric is a “core member of the company’s leadership team.”
All this ultimately created an awkward situation. As a candidate, Donald Trump pledged to ensure Bitcoin was “mined, minted, and manufactured in America”—yet American Bitcoin relies entirely on Chinese-made Antminers. And just one year earlier, the Biden administration had labeled those very miners a potential national security threat—now they’re poised to generate profits for the next president’s two sons. Perhaps recognizing these contradictions—and the broader “America First” sentiment—Bitmain quickly announced adjustments to some business plans. Irene Gao said the company would establish a new headquarters and assembly line in either Texas or Florida, hiring 250 local employees.
Bitmain circuit boards
As these plans moved forward, Ho downplayed security concerns about Bitmain products. “It has been thoroughly demonstrated that these ASIC chips are programmed for one purpose only: computing SHA-256,” he told Bloomberg Television in September. He described choosing Bitmain miners as procuring the most advanced technology: “Bitmain remains the most competitive and efficient.”
Even with the most powerful equipment, Bitcoin mining is harder to profit from than ever. Over the past six months, Bitcoin’s price has fallen over 40% to around $74,000 per coin—and roughly 95% of its fixed supply has already been mined. American Bitcoin’s stock has dropped nearly 90% from its September 2024 peak, valuing the company at about $960 million. On February 26, the company reported a $59 million loss for the fourth quarter. Still, Eric’s association with the company has yielded substantial personal gains. SEC filings show no indication he invested significant capital at the company’s founding—but his stake is now worth approximately $75 million at current share prices. If Bitcoin rebounds—whether driven by shifts in government policy or other market factors—the value of his and his brother Donald Jr.’s stakes could rise sharply.
Bitmain is collaborating with customers to address accusations of security vulnerabilities. Months after the Biden administration ordered removal of Bitmain miners near the Wyoming nuclear missile base, U.S. mining firm CleanSpark Inc. took over the site. The company quickly reinstalled miners purchased from Bitmain’s U.S. subsidiary—under contracts stipulating all equipment originated “outside China and any country sanctioned by the United States.” In a statement, CleanSpark said it places national security first, operates “fully legally,” and added that its Wyoming operating agreement “was finalized only after receiving approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).”
Meanwhile, American Bitcoin is expanding its collaboration with Bitmain. In a September filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company disclosed plans to purchase over 16,000 additional Antminers. The terms are unusual: rather than paying cash, the company will pay in “staked” Bitcoin—price undisclosed—an arrangement resembling an option contract exercisable anytime over two years. Some industry experts view this structure—particularly the extended exercise window—as exceptionally generous to American Bitcoin.
Another joint project is taking shape in Texas’s Panhandle region: a data center the size of five football fields—likely one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining facilities. Named Vega, the project was co-designed by Bitmain and American Bitcoin and began operations in June. According to Ho, the facility uses Bitmain’s latest liquid-cooled Antminers.
Bitmain views American Bitcoin more as a partner than a mere customer. Last year, Irene Gao and Genoot jointly attended the Bitcoin Asia cryptocurrency conference in Hong Kong. They sat onstage with a large screen behind them displaying the Vega project—reportedly costing $500 million to build. Gao announced that pre-orders for Bitmain’s latest miner—the S23 Hydro Antminer—had already exceeded $1 billion. This practical gray machine sells for $17,400. “These machines will all be manufactured in the U.S.,” she said.
The next day, Gao met with Bloomberg Businessweek reporters in her suite at the Hong Kong Hyatt Regency. She emphasized that Antminer sales and joint projects like Vega are just the beginning of Bitmain’s collaboration with American Bitcoin. “We can work with them very flexibly—fully customizing solutions based on their needs,” she said. “We deploy our miners within their infrastructure—selling them as bundled packages to our customers or to their affiliated companies.” Yet she repeatedly declined to answer more specific questions about the relationship between the two companies.
What Gao most wants to discuss is her optimistic outlook for Bitcoin—and especially for Bitmain’s future. Part of her confidence stems from the evolution of conferences like this one. “You’ll see many influential people,” she said—not just crypto enthusiasts, but representatives from traditional finance. Among them was a headline speaker scheduled for the next day: Eric Trump. He would electrify the crowd with an inspiring prediction: Bitcoin’s price would surpass $1 million—roughly 14 times its current level. “That’s a good signal,” Gao said, referring to attendance numbers. “A thriving scene.”
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