Poolin Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Proposes $52 Million Sale of Texas Mining Sites
Singapore-headquartered Bitcoin mining pool Poolin and two of its American subsidiaries have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New Jersey federal court, driven by mounting liabilities and shrinking market share.
Court filings show the firm owes between $100 million and $500 million to a vast creditor pool estimated at 10,001 to 25,000 entities, against total assets valued at just $1 million to $10 million. In an effort to restructure its balance sheet, Poolin is asking the court to authorize the sale of two West Texas data centers to Thor CALAP LLC for $52 million under a stalking-horse arrangement. A stalking-horse bid establishes a guaranteed lower limit on the purchase price to protect the debtor from lowball offers during bankruptcy liquidations.
Under the submitted motion, the transaction allocates $37 million for Poolin’s Tarbush assets, which includes assumed corporate liabilities, alongside $15 million for its Pyote facility. The Pyote acquisition covers hardware, physical structures, and crucial grid power access rights. Final bids for the assets face a proposed Sept. 8 deadline as part of an upcoming court-monitored auction.
The insolvency proceedings mark a dramatic shift for an enterprise that led the global cryptocurrency infrastructure five years ago. In 2019, Poolin held the highest total processing capacity on the network. However, industry monitoring platform Hashrate Index currently places the operator 17th globally, controlling roughly 0.2% of the overall Bitcoin hash rate—the aggregate computational power used by computers worldwide to secure the blockchain and validate transactions.
Poolin’s bankruptcy reflects broader structural challenges confronting proof-of-work cryptocurrency miners. High power costs, coupled with increasing network difficulty, have eroded operating margins across the sector, leaving debt-laden companies unable to sustain cash flow. The filing follows similar corporate distress elsewhere in the industry, including NFN8 Group and two of its affiliates, which submitted Chapter 11 filings in the Western District of Texas earlier this year.
To adapt to these headwinds, several prominent Bitcoin miners are repurposing their power-dense facilities toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing data centers. Traditional data center operators face years-long delays to secure gigawatt-scale electrical hookups, making turnkey mining sites highly attractive for training large language models. Companies including Hut 8 and IREN have recently finalized multi-billion-dollar deals to host AI workloads, while MARA Holdings initiated plans to acquire a 2-gigawatt Texas site for digital infrastructure expansion. Financial analysts at Bernstein note that AI technology developers will increasingly rely on partnerships with energy-rich crypto miners to overcome critical power shortages across global electric grids.
