PANews, November 26, reported that at the request of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has detained Bitmain's Antminer S21 and T21 series mining machines at ports nationwide for up to two months.
It is reported that seven U.S. mining companies have not been informed of a clear reason for the delay or a timeline for resolution. CBP is charging daily storage fees, with some companies' costs exceeding $200,000. This detention does not seem to have affected other manufacturers like MicroBT or Canaan.
Industry speculation suggests that the detention may be related to the chip supplier Sophgo, which is under investigation for U.S. sanctions. Sophgo was founded in 2019 by Jihan Wu, a co-founder of Bitmain, and its chips are used in some Bitmain mining machines, including the S19 series.
Previously, TSMC had stopped supplying chips to Sophgo. Recently, Trump stated that his administration would work to make the U.S. a "powerhouse" in Bitcoin mining and appointed cryptocurrency supporter Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce.