The Democratic Republic of the Congo pulled the trigger on resource nationalism in late June. The government signed an order banning all exports of copper and cobalt concentrates, effective immediately. Mines Minister Louis Kabamba Watum and other officials inked the decree on June 29, no advance warning, no phase-in period.
The DRC controls more than 70% of global cobalt output and ranks as Africa's largest copper producer. When a country that dominant locks down its minerals, the entire supply chain feels it. Battery makers scramble. Electronics manufacturers adjust sourcing plans. And crypto mining operations that depend on hardware built with these metals face real cost pressure down the road.
Why this matters for mining hardware
Cobalt lives in lithium-ion batteries, the same ones powering backup systems and increasingly serving as energy storage for mining rigs running on renewable power. Copper shows up everywhere: electrical wiring, circuit boards, power distribution systems inside every ASIC miner and GPU rig. Data center cooling loops need it too. When raw material costs rise because supply tightens, component manufacturers pass those costs downstream.
The DRC already tested this playbook before. In February 2025, the government suspended cobalt exports entirely for four months, then switched to an annual quota of at least 96,600 tonnes for 2026-2027. That quota lasted roughly a year. Now the ban is back, harder this time. The stated goal is blunt: keep economic value inside the country by forcing refinement and processing domestically instead of shipping raw concentrates abroad.
Indonesia did something similar with nickel in 2020, banning raw ore exports to attract smelter investment. Billions in new processing infrastructure followed. The DRC appears to be reading from the same script, but the cobalt situation is tighter. No other country produces cobalt at meaningful scale compared to the DRC. Australia, the Philippines, and Cuba mine some, but their combined output barely dents global demand. The concentration risk is stark.
Crypto hardware makers will watch battery costs climb if cobalt supplies stay restricted. Miners running energy-intensive operations on renewable systems might feel the pinch sooner than others. For the broader market, this is supply chain reality: when a single country controls three-quarters of a critical metal, geopolitical moves ripple fast.
This article is informational only and should not be treated as financial or investment advice.
