Original Author: Ryan Weeks, Bloomberg
Original Compilation: Luffy, Foresight News
Bitmain, once viewed by the United States as a national security threat and embroiled in controversies over miner security and remote control, is the absolute dominant force in the global Bitcoin mining hardware industry. This mysterious Chinese company, after facing a White House ban and a Department of Homeland Security investigation, has unexpectedly formed a significant business alliance with Eric Trump, the second son of former President Donald Trump.
On one side is a Chinese mining giant questioned for potentially endangering power grids and military base security; on the other is a Bitcoin company under the umbrella of the US President's family. Together, they are building a super mining farm in Texas, embarking on a heavyweight collaboration. This article reconstructs this alliance intertwined with politics and cryptocurrency, revealing how Bitmain managed to stage a dramatic comeback from the US "blacklist" to become one of the Trump family's most crucial business partners. The following is the full translation:
The Mining Empire: The Mysterious and Monopolistic Bitmain
From dedicated data centers in the Texas countryside to repurposed lumber mills in Borneo, rows of shoebox-shaped machines stand, emitting a deafening roar that sometimes draws complaints from neighbors. Each machine contains hundreds of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), produced at great cost in advanced Taiwanese factories. These chips are soldered onto three enclosed hash boards, performing brute-force calculations, with all instructions issued by a control board. Depending on the model, the machines use built-in fans or liquid cooling systems to prevent components from overheating, consuming vast amounts of electricity wherever they are installed.
These devices have only one purpose: to crack Bitcoin's underlying SHA‑256 algorithm. SHA‑256 is a so-called one-way function, meaning the only way to solve the mathematical puzzles it generates is through constant trial and error. Bitcoin miners make a living from this; once they calculate correctly, they earn the right to validate others' transactions and receive Bitcoin rewards.
Therefore, their profits directly depend on how many calculations these devices, called Antminers, can attempt per second: currently trillions. A top-of-the-line Antminer sells for up to $17,400. Large mining companies own as many as 500,000 miners, representing upfront investments of billions of dollars. Yet, compared to the potential returns, this capital expenditure is negligible, at least when cryptocurrency prices are high. Some users liken it to owning a row of printers that print lottery tickets, only with much higher odds of winning.
The Antminer is the flagship product of Bitmain Technologies Ltd. The company not only dominates the Bitcoin mining hardware production industry but, for most of its history, has essentially been the industry itself, holding over 80% market share. Few companies achieve such absolute dominance in a global industry: Alphabet Inc. in search is one; looking back decades, perhaps De Beers at its peak, controlling over three-quarters of the world's diamond production; or even centuries ago, entities like the Dutch East India Company that monopolized long-distance spice trade. But unlike these historical monopolists, much about Bitmain remains a mystery.
Bitmain miners at a Chinese mining farm in 2017
The company is not publicly listed, and its website does not publish a list of its global headquarters, CEO, or board members. The figure most closely associated with it is co-founder Jihan Wu, who rarely appears in public and is no longer chairman, though it's unclear when he stepped down, who succeeded him, or even if there is a successor.
Until recent months, Bitmain's spokespersons consistently refused to clarify even the most basic corporate structure and governance information, including the identities of major shareholders. As the company sells multiple miner models at different price points, estimates of its annual revenue vary wildly. An executive who has worked closely with Bitmain and requested anonymity, citing internal research, estimates its annual sales are between $2 billion and $3 billion. But even that figure is, at best, an educated guess.
However, two things are clear: First, Bitmain is headquartered in China. Second, it has formed an alliance with a child of former President Donald Trump. Eric Trump, the former president's second son, is co-founder and chief strategy officer of Miami-based American Bitcoin Corp. The company went public in New York last September, with his stake valued at approximately $548 million at the time. (The stock price has since fallen sharply amid a broader crypto sell-off.) Eric's older brother, Donald Trump Jr., is also an investor, with an undisclosed stake size.
American Bitcoin says it plans to purchase thousands of Bitmain Antminers, aiming to become the world's largest Bitcoin mining company, and has partnered with the Chinese firm to develop a large data center in Texas.
This partnership represents a stunning reversal for Bitmain. Not long ago, it faced potentially existential challenges: escalating US investigations questioning whether its equipment posed a national security threat. In May 2024, the White House ordered the removal of thousands of Bitmain miners from a mining site near a US Air Force nuclear missile base. Last year, a report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence warned that the presence of Bitmain miners near some military bases "poses an unacceptable risk."
In November, Bloomberg News reported, citing a US official and other people familiar with the matter, that Bitmain had been the focus of a Department of Homeland Security investigation to determine whether Antminers could be remotely controlled to sabotage power grids or repurposed for espionage. Sources said the investigation, dubbed "Operation Red Sun," began during the Biden administration and lasted at least into the early days of Trump's second term, with both administrations' National Security Councils discussing it.
Bitmain did not respond to detailed inquiries about potential security risks but said in a December statement that it complies with all applicable laws and that reports it was under investigation were "seriously inconsistent with the facts and constitute fake news." An American Bitcoin spokesperson said the company "adheres to strict standards regarding national security, grid stability, and operational safety" and "believes that, when mining hardware is deployed in accordance with modern industrial security standards, it does not pose a threat to the US power grid or national security."
Bitmain's Irene Gao, photographed in 2025
The current status of "Operation Red Sun" remains unclear. The Department of Homeland Security told Bloomberg Businessweek it "cannot comment on ongoing investigations." But Bitmain's partnership with American Bitcoin continues, and its aggressive push into the US hasn't stopped. In recent months, the company has opened up slightly to the outside world. For this article, Bitmain arranged an interview with its global sales director, Irene Gao.
She praised Trump's pro-crypto policies as "a very good thing in the eyes of most of our clients" but sidestepped simple questions like the names of key managers beyond CEO Yang Cunyong. "We just don't want to disclose any company information in that way," Irene Gao said.
Security Shadows: US National Security Investigations and Containment
Beyond speculators seeking quick riches, the crypto industry has attracted two types of people since its inception: tech geeks and true believers. The former focus primarily on the computational and mathematical challenges of creating and trading digital assets; the latter are obsessed with these tools' potential to transform global finance.
The two Chinese entrepreneurs who founded Bitmain fell neatly into these two camps. Jihan Wu came from a chip design background and had previously started a company developing TV set-top boxes. Micree Zhan was an investment analyst who became obsessed with cryptocurrency; notably, he was the one who translated Bitcoin's original whitepaper from English into Chinese. Their collaboration began over dinner in Beijing in 2013.
Zhan once said he went to Wikipedia the next morning to read about cryptocurrency and immediately decided to start a business with Wu. According to multiple people who have had contact with both and requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, they shared some traits: both were somewhat socially awkward, had kept extremely low profiles for most of their careers, rarely appearing publicly or giving interviews; sources said both could become irritable under pressure, with the deep, raspy-voiced Zhan witnessed berating employees so loudly the whole building could hear.
When Zhan and Wu founded Bitmain in 2013, Bitcoin mining wasn't dominated by giant data centers run by publicly listed companies as it is today. It was a world of enthusiasts frantically chasing the latest cutting-edge gear. That year, Bitcoin first broke $1,000; the cryptocurrency was in its infancy, with the vast majority of coins yet to be mined. Back then, a better miner could still significantly increase the network's total hash rate, a measure of the computing power needed to process transactions. As long as miners could get the most advanced machines quickly, they were guaranteed profits.
Bitmain employees in 2017
Bitmain launched its first miner, the Antminer S1, in November 2013. By today's standards, it was rudimentary, lacking even a casing, with hash boards and wiring exposed. But as one of the earliest ASIC-based miners and arguably the most powerful device at the time, it represented a qualitative leap over competitors and drove the industry toward specialized hardware. Subsequent generations of Antminers saw even greater advances, with each iteration almost redefining the market: if miners didn't buy the latest model, they simply couldn't compete.
Bitcoin's price surged over 250% in 2017, further boosting demand for Antminers. A mid-2018 private funding round valued Bitmain at $12 billion. Its growth attracted widespread attention; a new funding round in August 2018 even landed on Jeffrey Epstein's desk. Communications between Epstein and his advisers released by the US Justice Department in January this year show the disgraced financier was eager to invest up to $3 million in Bitmain's holding company but had some concerns about the deal structure. The documents don't indicate whether the investment ultimately went through.
Shortly after this communication, Bitmain filed for an IPO in Hong Kong, disclosing revenue of $2.5 billion, a massive increase from $137 million two years prior. The prospectus showed Zhan held about 36% at the time, and Wu held about 20%, each with paper fortunes worth billions. Other shareholders included Sequoia Capital China, IDG Capital, and Coatue. But betting wealth on rising crypto prices also meant disaster when prices fell. As markets crashed again, the listing plans were ultimately shelved. The entire industry entered a so-called "crypto winter," a prolonged period of low prices. Meanwhile, the partnership between Zhan and Wu fractured. According to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity, the split stemmed from a strategic dispute: Zhan wanted Bitmain to move into artificial intelligence, repurposing chips for applications like training facial recognition technology; Wu, the crypto true believer, opposed deviating from the company's original mission.
In late 2019, Wu attempted to take full control of the company, and Zhan was removed as Bitmain's legal representative and chairman. Zhan promptly sued in the Cayman Islands, where Bitmain's holding company is registered. A protracted power struggle ensued, culminating dramatically in a physical altercation at a government office in Beijing. Former journalist Hazel Hu witnessed the scene in 2020. She recalls that while Zhan was waiting at the Haidian District Market Supervision Bureau to collect Bitmain's paper business license, his supporters clashed with Wu's supporters present, with both sides wrestling over the documents. Police soon arrived from a nearby station, stopping the conflict that had spilled downstairs and into the street.
The following year, Wu conceded defeat, resigning as Bitmain's CEO and chairman. (The dispute was eventually settled; Wu now serves as chairman of mining hardware maker Bitdeer Group and a crypto investment platform.) Despite internal turmoil, Bitmain continued to expand, especially after Bitcoin prices resumed their climb in 2020. As the math between mining companies and profits grew more complex, Antminers became necessities. "They are the most efficient devices available," said Vishnu Mackenchery, senior director of corporate development at US-based Compass Mining.
Antminers being assembled at a Shenzhen factory
At the time, Bitmain's sales were heavily concentrated in its home market. Data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows China accounted for about three-quarters of global Bitcoin mining hash rate in 2019. But in 2021, the Chinese government cracked down hard on crypto mining, citing high energy consumption and carbon emissions. The result was a mass exodus of miners to regions with relatively cheap electricity and friendly regulatory environments—conditions particularly prominent in parts of the US. As a hardware manufacturer, not a mining operator, Bitmain wasn't shut down, continuing operations in Beijing and setting up distribution centers across Southeast Asia. But from then on, its future would be determined by the US.
After China's policy shift, Bitmain increased sales to US miners and expanded a side business managing mining operations for American clients. To give the company a public face in the US, it also transferred Irene Gao stateside. Gao joined Bitmain shortly after graduating university in 2016 and, upon arriving in the US, lived out of a suitcase for years, traveling between cities pitching products to clients. As with much about Bitmain, sales figures and market share from this period remain opaque, but industry veterans say there's no question it was becoming the dominant player.
However, the company soon felt the impact of geopolitical tensions. During Trump's first administration, the White House imposed 25% tariffs on a range of Chinese-made electronics. Bitmain began routing products through Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia—a common practice among Chinese manufacturers but one US authorities considered a violation of customs rules. President Biden largely maintained these tariffs.
In 2022, US Customs and Border Protection inspected a shipment of Antminers destined for Connecticut-based miner Sphere 3D Corp. After disassembling one device, inspectors found tiny "Made in China" labels on internal components. According to Sphere 3D's then-CEO Patricia Trompeter, the entire shipment of 4,000 miners was held for three months. Fearing further delays, some miners began diversifying risk, shifting orders to competitors who had set up production in the US, something Bitmain hadn't done at the time.
The most serious allegations against Bitmain were far more lethal than tariff evasion: whether its miners could be tampered with for purposes other than mining. Suspicions began circulating in crypto circles in 2017 when an industry media outlet reported that Antminers contained built-in code allowing Bitmain to remotely shut them down. The company quickly confirmed the code's existence but said its purpose was legitimate—to disable stolen miners, similar to Apple allowing users to lock lost iPhones. Bitmain later said it had removed the feature, but two years later, tech bloggers found similar code; the company then issued a security patch.
According to a person familiar with confidential internal deliberations who requested anonymity, during the Biden administration, US officials commissioned studies to assess whether Bitmain miners and other Chinese-made mining hardware might pose national security risks. The person said the investigation revolved around two distinct lines of inquiry: First, whether miners could be used for espionage. Crypto hardware experts considered this possibility extremely low, if not impossible, given their highly specialized engineering. Second, and of greater concern to US officials: the potential impact of remote shutdowns on the US power grid.
When a large electricity consumer, like a steel plant, goes offline, it's typically a planned, gradual process, with power consumption dropping over two days or more. A Bitcoin mining farm can consume comparable power but can shut down in seconds. The person said US officials worried such a "shock event" could create a sudden imbalance between power generation and consumption, potentially destabilizing the electrical supply.
The most frightening scenario: a remote order from China shutting down thousands of Bitmain miners located near military bases or other critical infrastructure reliant on the same power source. "Anyone who hacks into an entire data center, whether it's AI, crypto, or cloud services, could cause serious damage to the grid," said Michael Bedford Taylor, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Washington, though he cautioned that Bitmain itself was unlikely to have the motivation to do so.
In the spring of 2024, the Biden administration went public with security concerns about a mining site. Located on 12 acres near Cheyenne, Wyoming, a company with Chinese links had installed