In this news:
Workers check crypto mining racks at an industrial mining facility. (Photo by DANIEL DUARTE/AFP via ... More Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Despite the harshest profit squeeze in half a decade, the business of mining bitcoin on U.S. soil is consolidating and once again gathering momentum. Washington has recognized bitcoin’s proof‑of‑work as a strategic resource, state legislatures are offering regulatory clarity, manufacturers are shipping more efficient machines, and entrepreneurs are inventing new revenue models that couple mining with digital collectibles and flexible‑load grid services. These converging forces help explain why network hashrate continues to march toward the one‑zettahash era even as hashprice languishes and publicly traded miners dump inventory. As mining difficulty rises even as bitcoin’s price trades sideways, it is possible to observe an industry scaling into a deeper economic cycle.
U.S. Policy Tailwinds Propel Bitcoin Mining
The clearest inflection came on 6 March 2025, when President Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, directing Treasury to hold forfeited coins and authorizing research into budget‑neutral accumulation methods. The Order states that "there is a strategic advantage to being among the first nations to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" due to Bitcoin's fixed supply, and it refers to Bitcoin as "digital gold" because of its scarcity and security.
At the state level, Arkansas had already laid groundwork with the Data Centers Act of 2023, which classifies mining as protected industrial activity and curtails local zoning interference. Oklahoma followed with a Commercial Digital Asset Mining Act in 2024 granting sales‑tax relief on rigs and power contracts, while Texas’ updated HB 1666 balanced custody standards with grid‑integration incentives, evidence that states view miners as high‑load customers, not environmental transgressors.
Federal industrial policy reinforces the point. This past summer, Block’s Proto team signed an agreement to supply Core Scientific with 3 nm modular rigs and publish design files so other operators can manufacture locally. By collapsing supply‑chain risk and eliminating import tariffs on Chinese hardware that might soon surpass 100%, the deal incorporates U.S. fabrication with the mining cost stack. Such a move would have seemed far fetched by industry veterans just a few years ago.
Environmental objections, long expressed by policymakers as a key reason to reject bitcoin, have been all but abandoned. And with good reason. A recent Duke University review concluded that flexible bitcoin mining loads could absorb up to 76 GW of new demand with minimal curtailment, reducing the need for peaker plants and accelerating renewable integration. The Bitcoin Policy Institute’s survey of ten North American miners found real‑time curtailment rates between five and thirty‑one percent, demonstrating that miners routinely shed load during price spikes. These studies rebut the claim that mining “steals” renewable energy and underpin state‑level enthusiasm for dispatchable industrial customers.
.png)
