US Authorities Begin to Free Some Arrested Cryptocurrency Miners, Industry Executives Say

DETROIT, March 5 (Reuters) – U.S. authorities have begun releasing confiscated Chinese equipment used to mine cryptocurrency in recent weeks, two industry officials told Reuters. Cryptocurrency miners are essentially powerful computers with sophisticated chips that compete against each other to solve math problems. The process helps create the blockchains that underpin the cryptocurrency world and allows for rewards in the form of the new digital currency. “Thousands of units have been released,” said Taras Kulyk, CEO and co-founder of Synteq Digital, a brokerage of cryptocurrency mining equipment. At one point, as many as 10,000 units were being held at various ports, Kulyk told Reuters. “It appears that there were some people at CBP who really didn’t approve of bitcoin mining, so they were looking to make it difficult for the entire sector, which they were quite successful in doing,” he said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Communications Commission began seizing certain bitcoin mining equipment late last year, industry publication Blockspace reported in November , opens new tab . The publication mentioned that at least some of the machines may have been detained because they contained chips from Chinese company Sophgo, which is under a trade ban. The release of an unspecified amount of equipment comes amid the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, as well as security concerns raised by U.S. authorities in the final months of the Biden administration. Ethan Vera, chief operating officer of Luxor Technology, told Reuters that “some of the detained shipments are being released, but it’s still a small number.” Both Vera and Kulik noted that authorities had raised concerns about the machines’ radio frequency emissions, which they said were unfounded. A CBP spokesman acknowledged a Reuters request for comment on Wednesday but did not immediately provide a response. The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As Reuters reported in October, Sophgo was sanctioned in the final days of the Biden administration for allegedly acting as an intermediary between Taiwanese high-end chipmaker TSMC and blacklisted Chinese telecoms company Huawei.

Source: cryptonews.net