Two Republican senators introduced legislation on 30 Mar that would push the US cryptocurrency mining industry to use domestic equipment and codify a federal Bitcoin stockpile.
The Mined in America Act, sponsored by Republican Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, would create a voluntary certification program for domestic mining operations. It would also direct the Treasury Department to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, codifying an executive order signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Cynthia Lummis has strong allegiances to the President, who publicly endorsed her re-election in 2025. Bill Cassidy has more of a strained relationship, however, and voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial in January 2021. His motivations for this bill are more likely policy-driven rather than a sign of close personal loyalty to the administration.
Supply risk
The bill targets US dependency on mining hardware from China, according to the Satoshi Action Fund, a Bitcoin advocacy group backing the measure.
"America controls 38% of the world's Bitcoin hash rate, but 97% of the hardware powering it comes from China. That is not leadership, that is a liability," said Dennis Porter, the group's chief executive, in a statement.
Under the proposal, the Department of Commerce would administer a certification programme. Certified facilities would be required to transition away from equipment linked to "foreign adversaries."
The National Institute of Standards and Technology would be tasked with helping manufacturers develop domestically produced mining hardware.
Miners squeezed
The proposal arrives at a difficult moment for the mining industry. Bitcoin has spent much of 2026 range-bound between $65,000 and $75,000, well below the levels many operators need to turn a profit.
According to a CoinShares report, the weighted average cash cost to produce one bitcoin among publicly listed miners rose to approximately $79,995 in the fourth quarter of 2025. This left the industry losing money on nearly every coin mined.
The industry's response has been a pivot toward artificial intelligence. More than $70bn in AI and high-performance computing contracts have been signed across the public mining sector. Some miners are forecast to make up to 70% of their revenue from AI by the end of 2026, effectively turning them into data centre operators that still mine Bitcoin on the side.
