OP-ED: Can the U.S. Break Asia’s Bitcoin Mining Hardware Grip?
By Charles Chong
Asia has dominated Bitcoin mining hardware for over a decade. As mining companies raced to upgrade and expand their fleets, Asian manufacturers like Bitmain, MicroBT, and Canaan built their success around cheap machines that hyperfocused on raw efficiency. Each new generation pushed efficiency higher, and miners rushed to replace old rigs.
But as speed and efficiency gains have plateaued, with most hardware manufacturers struggling to evolve beyond 3nm generation chips, miners have started to consider new concerns when weighing their hardware options: “which rig will last longer, and cost me less in the long run?”, “will this be a pain in the butt to operate?”, “will I be able to swap in new components?”.
As miners begin to shift their priorities, U.S. tech behemoth Block has entered the hardware fray with its Proto Rig and Proto Fleet products, a rare U.S. attempt to compete in the ASIC market.
If other Silicon Valley companies follow suit and get it right, they could shift Bitcoin mining from an Asia-dominated market for disposable machines to a global industry where openness, repairability, and reliable support matter just as much as efficiency.
The perks of more competition in Bitcoin mining hardware
Bitcoin miners have long operated in a market with limited choice. Asian companies such as Bitmain, MicroBT, and Canaan (makers of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) machines designed solely for mining) collectively make up 99 percent of all Bitcoin mining rigs.
As a result, miners have been trapped in a hamster wheel. They shell out big bucks for costly upgrades just to keep pace. They get tied to firmware they can’t escape. And when something breaks, after-sales support is often unreliable.
A stronger U.S. presence could change that dynamic.
If Silicon Valley’s entry proves credible, it can force Asia incumbents to move past raw performance and focus on the other features miners have been asking for: upgradability, repairability, and standardized software. Making machines more durable could ease the financial pressure of constant replacement and make halving cycles less disruptive.
Competition would also spread ASIC know-how beyond Asia. When manufacturing and design are concentrated in one part of the world, the whole network is more fragile. A broader base of expertise makes Bitcoin harder to disrupt and less dependent on any single region. In short, competition strengthens not just miners’ balance sheets but the health of the ecosystem itself.
How Asian manufacturers built an ASIC monopoly
How did Asia come to dominate Bitcoin mining hardware in the first place? As they say, the continent happened to be at the right place, at the right time.
Asian companies grabbed the first-mover advantage in the early 2010s, when Bitcoin mining shifted from GPUs to ASICs. Built solely for Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm, ASICs were so much more efficient than GPUs that miners quickly clustered around whoever could make them at scale, benefiting the Asian region and its hardware manufacturing chops.
Short hardware refresh cycles required manufacturers to funnel profits into R&D, and made it nearly impossible for any new entrants to justify the costs of catching up.
From there, Asian firms locked down the supply chain. They had domestic fabrication and packaging facilities, strong ties with contract manufacturers, and logistics networks that let them crank out rigs fast. Bitmain and MicroBT then reinvested heavily in chip design and cooling, entrenching their lead.
Miners lived with closed firmware, service lock-ins, and shaky support because there simply weren’t alternatives.
A Winning U.S. Approach
For U.S. mining companies to be able to compete with the Asia-dominated market, they’ll have to significantly raise the standard that Asia set early on. They’ll have to offer infrastructure that is open-source, modular, and can be easily repaired.
Mining hardware should be designed for the people operating it, and not simply for ease of construction. A modular architecture separates compute, cooling, control, and power supply, allowing miners to “hot swap” components and adapt machines for different use cases. That supports longer lifecycles and makes repairs more practical, bringing the consumer electronics approach to the mining rig market.
An open-source stack will reduce vendor lock-in, let the community audit and tune performance, and create a pathway for standardized fleet management across mixed hardware. Efficiency will still matter, but sustainability must become a part of the equation.
Block’s new Proto Rig and Proto Fleet products claim to introduce this approach. With decades of experience in point-of-sale systems, global manufacturing relationships, and quality control, Block could make dependable delivery and service credible in ways past U.S. entrants couldn’t. And if other U.S. companies take the sustainable approach, they could set a new bar for mining infrastructure.
Helping miners become more sophisticated energy users
For miners, the biggest cost driver is electricity, not hardware. Power prices can swing wildly from one region to another, and as block rewards drop with each halving, energy efficiency becomes the thin margin between survival and shutdown.
Here, too, miners have suffered from little flexibility. They used the only machines available, which had fixed energy profiles dictated by closed firmware, and had to live with whatever efficiency curve the manufacturer delivered.
American mining infrastructure should enable miners to underclock or overclock rigs depending on market conditions, tuning performance to match power costs in real time. Swappable components make it easier to chase cheap power, hedge costs, or earn by pausing during peak demand.
The U.S. doesn’t need to wrest the entire market away from Asia to make a difference. Even a credible challenge can broaden competition and give miners real choice. That choice will make Bitcoin a stronger, more resilient network.
Charles Chong is a core contributor to Fractal Bitcoin. The views expressed are his own.