Senate Bill Would Create Federal Certification for U.S. Bitcoin Miners and Codify Trump's Reserve

Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) introduced the Mined in America Act on Monday, legislation that would establish a federal certification program for Bitcoin mining operations and enshrine President Donald Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve executive order into law. The bill represents the most direct attempt yet to treat crypto mining as a strategic domestic industry deserving of government support.

Under the proposal, the Commerce Department would run a voluntary certification program for mining pools and facilities. Operations that earn the “Mined in America” label would gain access to existing federal energy and rural development programs, but in exchange must commit to phasing out equipment manufactured by companies linked to foreign adversaries, specifically Russia and China. The bill also directs the government to help U.S. manufacturers develop mining hardware domestically.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

The hardware dependency is the bill’s central policy argument. Dennis Porter, CEO of the Satoshi Action Fund, which helped craft the legislation, said Chinese-made machines account for 97% of Bitcoin’s global hash rate. That concentration mirrors the semiconductor supply chain vulnerability that prompted the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022, which allocated $52.7 billion to onshore chip fabrication after pandemic-era shortages exposed the risk of relying on facilities in Taiwan and East Asia.

The bill lands as publicly traded miners increasingly pivot toward hosting artificial intelligence workloads, with Bitcoin mining profitability squeezed after the asset’s retreat from all-time highs. The U.S. currently accounts for roughly 37.5% of global Bitcoin hash rate, the largest share of any single country. Cassidy framed the legislation around blue-collar job creation, arguing that mining facilities and the data center buildout driven by AI demand can anchor domestic manufacturing employment.

The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve provision would codify Trump’s March executive order, which directed the Treasury to hold forfeited Bitcoin rather than sell it. Lummis, who is not seeking re-election when her term ends in January 2027, has separately pushed legislation to fund the reserve, advocating last October for $14.4 billion in seized crypto to be diverted into it. No budget-neutral acquisition strategy has been formally announced.