Poolin, Once One of Bitcoin's Biggest Mining Pools, Files for Bankruptcy

In brief Poolin Technology filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 22. The largest single debt, $163.7 million, is owed to about 11,700 users. Thor CALAP LLC has placed a $52 million stalking-horse bid for Poolin's two West Texas mining sites, setting the floor for a court-supervised auction. Poolin Technology Pte. Ltd., the Singapore-based company that once ran one of Bitcoin's largest mining pools, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 22—the U.S. legal process that lets a company operate under court supervision while it reorganizes or, in this case, sells off its remaining assets and shuts down. The filing , in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, covers Poolin alongside two U.S. affiliates, Lonestar Dream Inc. and Lonestar Taproot LLC. Court documents list roughly prepetition obligations of more than $100 million against less than $10 million in assets.  A mining pool lets individual Bitcoin miners combine their hashrate—the raw computing power machines burn through to solve the cryptographic puzzles that add new blocks to the blockchain—so the group wins rewards more often than any single miner could alone. Poolin was founded in Beijing in 2017 by Zhibiao "Kevin" Pan , along with Fa Zhu and Tianzhao Li, all veterans of mining-hardware maker Bitmain, and it grew into one of the world's biggest pools. At its peak, the company controlled nearly a fifth of the network's global hashrate , before expanding into crypto lending and interest-bearing accounts through a product called Poolin Wallet. The trouble started in September 2022, when Poolin froze withdrawals for Poolin Wallet and Pool Account users. The company said at the time it was "facing some liquidity issues," tied to a wave of withdrawal demand during that year's broader crypto crash. Rather than making customers whole, Poolin issued IOU tokens as placeholders for real Bitcoin, and those debts never got repaid. Those unpaid IOUs are now the largest liability in the bankruptcy case. About 11,700 wallet holders are owed $163.7 million, according to a court declaration from Chief Restructuring Officer Michael DuFrayne. Poolin's Texas mining and hosting operations, run through Lonestar Dream, shut down entirely on July 10, and the company says it does not intend to resume. To repay what it can, Poolin is auctioning its two West Texas sites, with Thor CALAP LLC offering a $52 million stalking-horse bid —an opening offer that sets the floor price other bidders must beat in a court-supervised sale. That amount covers only the physical mining infrastructure, not the frozen wallet balances, and falls well short of what users are owed. The Texas units had already piled up roughly $45.9 million in losses since they opened, plus another $8.8 million from selling equipment at discounted prices between fiscal 2023 and 2025. Recovery for the 11,700 IOU holders now depends largely on what the Texas auction brings in, more than three years after their withdrawals were first frozen. Daily Debrief Newsletter Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more. Your Email Get it! Get it!