PANews reported on November 26 that according to Blockspace, at the request of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has detained Bitmain Antminer S21 and T21 series mining machines at ports across the country for up to two months.
It is reported that the seven US mining companies have not yet been informed of the clear reasons for the delay and the timetable for resolution. CBP is charging daily storage fees, and some companies have incurred fees of more than $200,000. The detention does not appear to have affected other manufacturers such as MicroBT or Canaan.
The industry speculates that the detention may be related to Sophgo, a chip supplier that is under investigation for U.S. sanctions. Sophgo was founded by Bitmain co-founder Zhan Ketuan in 2019, and its chips are used in some Bitmain mining machines including the S19 series.
Previously, TSMC had stopped supplying chips to Sophgo. Trump recently said that his government will work to make the United States a "powerful country" in Bitcoin mining and appointed cryptocurrency supporter Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce.
