Shares of leading publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies fell sharply on Thursday, a day after US President Donald Trump rocked markets by imposing global tariffs.
Share prices of US miners such as Hive Digital, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms and BitDeer were down 6-8% on Thursday morning New York time.
Shares of other U.S. Bitcoin miners, including Core Scientific and MARA, fell more than 11% and 8%, respectively.
The price drop comes after Trump, known for his support of cryptocurrencies, said he would impose a base rate of 10% on all U.S. imports and higher tariffs on some of the country's largest trading partners, including a 34% tariff on China, which makes much of the country's mining equipment. The U.S. already imposes a 20% tariff on many goods from China.
And there could be further problems, Wolfie Zhao, head of research at industry publication TheMinerMag , told Decrypt . “In terms of the impact of tariffs, they will certainly have an impact on mining companies that rely heavily on Chinese ASIC manufacturers for their future growth,” he added.
“Increased capital expenditure means a longer payback period for investment in an environment where the mining economy is already in recession.”
The industry, largely centered in the U.S., has been hit in recent weeks by the slump in bitcoin prices. It was already forced to contend with a sharp increase in mining difficulty and a reduction in rewards as a result of last year’s halving, which reduced the reward for verifying transactions on the blockchain from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoins.
Bitcoin miners are typically industrial enterprises consisting of warehouses filled with computers that secure the network – being rewarded with newly created coins for processing blocks in the decentralized payment system.
However, when the price of the most popular cryptocurrency falls, it becomes more difficult for companies to cover their expenses.
Trump promised to support the digital asset industry during his election campaign. He said he wanted all future Bitcoin to be 100% American-made — something that will likely prove impossible .
According to data provider CoinGecko, the price of Bitcoin recently stood at $81,941 after falling more than 5% in a 24-hour period.
Almost all major digital coins and tokens were also in negative territory on Thursday afternoon ET.
Edited by James Rubin
Source: cryptonews.net
