(Bloomberg) — As Donald Trump prepares to fulfill a lengthy list of campaign promises, the president-elect’s vow to ensure that all remaining Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is “made in the USA” may prove to be one of the most challenging to keep.Most Read from Bloomberg Ho Chi Minh City Opens First Metro Line After Years of Delay Trump made the pledge in a post on his Truth Social account in June after meeting at Mar-a-Lago with a group of executives from crypto miners, the companies whose massive, high-tech data centers do the work that facilitates transactions on the blockchain in exchange for compensation paid in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. The gathering was a key juncture in Trump’s transformation from a crypto skeptic to one of the industry’s strongest allies.“It is a Trump-like comment but it is definitely not in reality,” said Ethan Vera, chief operating officer at Seattle-based Luxor Technology, which provides software and services to miners.While seen widely as a symbolic pledge of support, it’s near impossible in practice since blockchains are decentralized networks in which no one controls or can be banned from participating in the process. On a practical basis, the sector is becoming increasingly competitive as large-scale operations pop up across the world to get a slice of the tens of billions of dollars in revenue generated each year by the industry.Russian oligarchs, Dubai royal families and Chinese businessmen in Africa are some of the freshest competitors. Deep pockets and access to vast amounts of power are spurring them to join in on the lucrative but energy-intensive process. About 95% of the 21 million Bitcoin that will ever be created have already been minted, though the hard cap on production isn’t expected to be met for about 100 years.The Bitcoin mining sector in the US has morphed into a multi-billion dollar industry over the last several years as the token saw exponential increases in prices. However, the total computing power generated from US-based miners is well below 50% and it is impossible to power the entire network by domestic companies, according to industry analysts. While there is no public data to indicate the sources of computing power from each region across the world, large crypto-mining service providers such as Luxor tend to have good insight on the makeup. They have more specific information on mining locations through their software that aggregates computing power to increase chances for miners to get Bitcoin rewards.US miners such as CleanSpark Inc. and Riot Platforms Inc. (RIOT) were quick to support Trump, banking on the former-president to ease scrutiny on the environmental impact of the high-energy use process, curb competition from overseas and to roll back what they view as restrictive guidelines under the Biden administration. Trump’s support of crypto helped to generate about $135 million in campaign contributions during the last election cycle, the most by any one industry
Ven. Dic 27th, 2024
