Shares of leading publicly traded Bitcoin mining firms fell sharply on Thursday, following market turmoil caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of global tariffs.
Several American miners, such as Hive Digital, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, and BitDeer, saw their stock prices decline by 6-8% as trading began on Thursday morning in New York.
Additional U.S. Bitcoin miners, including Core Scientific and MARA, experienced drops exceeding 11% and 8%, respectively.
This price decline follows Trump’s declaration of a 10% baseline tariff on all U.S. imports, along with higher tariffs for some of the nation’s largest trading partners, including a hefty 34% tariff on China—home to most mining equipment manufacturing. The U.S. already imposes a 20% tariff on numerous Chinese products.
Wolfie Zhao, research head at mining publication TheMinerMag, indicated that further challenges may arise. He stated to Decrypt that “the tariffs will certainly affect mining companies that depend heavily on Chinese ASIC manufacturers for their future growth.”
“The heightened capital costs will lead to a longer ROI, especially in an environment where mining economics are already in decline.”
The industry, primarily U.S.-based, has faced difficulties recently due to falling Bitcoin prices, compounded by an increasing mining difficulty and reduced rewards following last year’s halving, which lowered the reward for transaction verification on the blockchain from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoins.
Bitcoin miners operate industrial facilities filled with computers dedicated to securing the network, receiving newly minted coins as rewards for successfully processing blocks on the decentralized payment network.
However, a decrease in the cryptocurrency’s price can make it challenging for these businesses to manage their expenses.
While campaigning, Trump vowed to support the digital asset sector, claiming he wanted all future Bitcoin to be produced entirely in the U.S.—a promise that may be nearly impossible to fulfill.
As of recent data from CoinGecko, Bitcoin’s price stood at $81,941 after experiencing a decline of more than 5% over the previous 24 hours.
By Thursday afternoon Eastern Time, nearly all major digital currencies and tokens were also trading in the red.
Edited by James Rubin
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