Tax Code Hurdles Trump's 'Bitcoin Made in America' Campaign

President Donald Trump's 'Bitcoin made in America' campaign pledge is facing a major obstacle: the US tax code. Specifically, the way it treats crypto mining and staking rewards has pushed validation infrastructure and its largest clients toward offshore jurisdictions with clearer rules.

H.R. 9175, the Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, aims to fix this issue by letting miners and stakers defer tax on newly minted tokens until they sell them. This would end a cash-flow penalty that has driven validation infrastructure and its clients toward more favorable jurisdictions.

The bill's proposed changes have been welcomed by the Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation, and The Digital Chamber, which see it as a 'balanced compromise' that preserves ordinary-income classification while eliminating the tax-before-liquidity penalty.

However, even if passed, the bill will not address the underlying competition in the crypto mining industry. According to Aydin Kilic, CEO of HIVE Digital Technologies, the first question when building new capacity is whether the company owns the land and can execute efficiently on-site. Then come off-taker demand, long-term power availability, and economics.