Speculations Swirl Around Sophgo’s Huawei Ties

The US Customs and Border Safety (CBP) is holding particular imports of Antminer ASIC miners at numerous ports throughout the nation. Seven US-based bitcoin mining corporations, who spoke anonymously, claimed that the Federal Communications Fee (FCC) had directed the CBP to carry sure deliveries of Bitmain ASIC miners.

Curiously, different Chinese language producers of ASIC mining gear, like MicroBT and Canaan, haven’t been subjected to the identical remedy.

Miners Face Months-Lengthy Delay

In keeping with Blockspace’s newest report, some shipments have been delayed for as much as two months. The hold-ups occurred at ports throughout the nation, together with these in San Francisco and Detroit. The affected imports embody Bitmain’s newest Antminer S21 and T21 fashions.

Though the CBP has acknowledged the detention of those items, it has not supplied readability on the explanations for the maintain or a timeline for releasing the shipments.

A supply coping with prolonged delays, now spanning “months,” stated that CBP detentions exceeding 30 days with none formal requests to the Importer of File (IOR) are extremely unusual and fall properly beneath anticipated requirements.

In addition they talked about observing Superior Concentrating on Unit (ATU) personnel at sure ports and famous that companies are more and more advising friends to keep away from particular entry factors, notably these alongside the West Coast. One other particular person revealed that the CBP is withholding roughly 200 models.

Regardless of repeated appeals for readability, each the CBP and FCC have declined to reply whereas persevering with to levy day by day holding charges which have surpassed $200,000. To handle the matter, the affected firm has engaged a authorized workforce to hunt solutions from the FCC.

Sophgo’s Huawei Hyperlink Placing Antminers within the Crosshairs?

Whereas the precise trigger stays unknown, one doable clarification is the presence of Sophgo chips in Antminer management boards. Sophgo has come underneath scrutiny for allegedly breaching US sanctions by supplying chips to Huawei, an organization topic to commerce restrictions since 2019.

Sophgo and Bitmain share the identical CEO, Micree Zhan. After a Sophgo chip was reportedly present in a Huawei system, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Firm (TSMC) ended its enterprise relationship with the corporate.

Though no definitive hyperlink has been established between the import halts and this controversy, sources verified that Bitmain makes use of the Sophgo CV1835 chip within the Antminer T21 and sure S19 fashions, together with the S19 XP, S19 Professional, and S19j Professional.