Chinese rigs head stateside as US agenda steals the show at Bitcoin Asia

Bitcoin Asia happened in Hong Kong last week, but the power plays didn’t. The crowd showed up in Asia, the headlines went west.

Everyone inside the venue, from miners to politicians to fanboys with framed Michael Saylor art, could see it. The United States, once an outsider in crypto, now runs the show. And they’re not even pretending otherwise.

Bitmain, the Chinese mining giant that once symbolized China’s grip on Bitcoin, told the world that it’s now building machines in the U.S.

Irene Gao, Bitmain’s president of mining, said on stage that the company has already locked in over $1 billion in preorders for its newest rig, the S23 Hydro. She said every single unit will be built in America.

Irene shared the stage with Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8 Corp., who’s also on the board at American Bitcoin, a company tied to President Donald Trump. Asher told the crowd that a new Texas mining facility went live in June, built in collaboration with Bitmain. It’s now one of the biggest single-building Bitcoin mines on Earth.

For context, these mining machines are no joke. They use heavy computing power to validate Bitcoin transactions and earn coins in return. That process burns through a lot of electricity, so scale matters. This kind of industrial-grade setup in Texas shows exactly where Bitmain’s loyalty now sits.

Eric Trump turns Bitcoin Asia into campaign ground

The crowd came for mining news, but they got politics too. Eric Trump stepped into the spotlight on Friday, taking the stage alongside crypto adviser David Bailey, and they certainly didn’t come to play quiet diplomats.

Eric predicted Bitcoin would hit $1 million in the next few years. He also credited David for “converting” his father, and then laid out how his family sees crypto as a geopolitical tool, not just some financial bet. He said one of Donald Trump’s first moves when he returned to office was an executive order supporting dollar-based stablecoins, describing it as a direct play to protect the U.S. dollar’s dominance against China.

Eric also said, “China is still a hell of a power in crypto,” even though the government banned most token trading back in 2021. He acknowledged that countries in the Middle East are picking up speed, but added, “I really do believe the US right now is winning the digital revolution.”

That speech didn’t land smoothly with everyone. Two Hong Kong officials, Eric Yip, a regulator, and Johnny Ng, a lawmaker, suddenly backed out of speaking at the event. The South China Morning Post reported that they were advised to stay offstage while Trump was around.

The Securities and Futures Commission said Yip skipped the event for a business trip. Ng and the Hong Kong government said nothing.

Despite the awkward exits, the conference rolled on. Metaplanet Inc., the Japanese firm known for stacking Bitcoin, topped the sponsor list. Balaji Srinivasan, a former Coinbase exec, promoted his new project, a breakaway school inside Malaysia’s Forest City. Even Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance, made a surprise appearance.

None of it pulled attention away from the U.S. Not even close. The most chaotic moment of the entire week came when Eric Trump raised his fist onstage, fired shots at banks that allegedly cut off his family’s access, and shouted out the entire Bitcoin scene. He ended it with a line that got the loudest cheers of the night: “The Bitcoin community embraced my father unlike anything I have ever seen before.”

From tech deals to campaign speeches, Bitcoin Asia became a loud, American-dominated event where Chinese companies built U.S. rigs, Trump’s son preached Bitcoin policy, and the future of mining turned red, white, and blue.

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