Bitcoin mining servers for a report on Poolin's Chapter 11 sale of its Texas mining sites.

Poolin Put Its Texas Bitcoin Mines Up for Sale. One Debt Is More Than Three Times the Opening Bid

By Isaac • July 24, 2026 5:12 pm • Comments

Poolin once sat at the top of Bitcoin mining.

Its remaining U.S. mining sites now have an opening bid of $52 million.

The largest debt in Poolin’s bankruptcy is much bigger.

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A court declaration lists $163,723,500 in unsecured IOUs to Poolin Wallet holders. That single line is more than three times the stalking-horse bid for the company’s two West Texas sites.

It also represents nearly 95% of the obligations in Poolin’s prepetition capital table.

That gap is the center of the Chapter 11 case.

Poolin Technology and U.S. affiliates Lonestar Dream and Lonestar Taproot filed in New Jersey on July 22. The Texas mining operations had closed 12 days earlier.

The companies are pursuing a court-supervised sale and a liquidating plan, rather than trying to restart the mining business.

Chief Restructuring Officer Michael DuFrayne’s first-day declaration says Poolin Wallet suspended withdrawals during a liquidity crisis in September 2022. The company then issued approximately $163.7 million in IOUs to wallet customers.

About 11,700 holders had balances above $100 when those IOUs were issued.

The declaration gives the exact user-debt figure as $163,723,500. It lists another $4,467,600 in unsecured debt, a $4,258,600 unsecured shareholder loan, $450,000 owed to trade creditors and $210,000 in insurance premiums.

The five categories total approximately $173.1 million. The document classifies the wallet IOUs as unsecured, identifies no collateral reserved for them and gives no projected recovery percentage; any payout will depend on the estate’s value, competing claims and court-approved distributions.

The wallet debt came from a business Poolin built during its rise.

Founded in 2017, Poolin grew into one of the world’s largest crypto mining pools. The declaration says it was regarded as the largest by September 2019.

Poolin Wallet let customers pledge Bitcoin and borrow USDT against it. Poolin then used customer cryptocurrency as collateral to obtain USDT from lenders.

That structure worked while collateral values held and the mining business expanded.

Two shocks broke it.

China banned Bitcoin mining in May 2021, forcing Poolin to shut down its mainland operations and look outside the country. Then the crypto market fell hard in 2022.

The declaration says Poolin faced increasing margin calls after Bitcoin dropped below roughly $20,000 that June.

During the summer, Poolin used approximately $355.8 million in then-market-value collateral to borrow about $213 million from Antalpha Technologies. The proceeds went toward U.S. mining development, equipment, interest, customer withdrawals and ordinary expenses.

By September, Poolin Wallet had stopped withdrawals.

Antalpha liquidated the wallet collateral in November 2022. Poolin management estimates that $260 million was due at the time against approximately $265 million in digital assets.

Poolin has not operated in the ordinary course since that year. Its remaining parent-company assets include about $1.2 million in a New Jersey bank account, an office lease and an intercompany claim.

The Texas affiliates were supposed to become the next business.

Lonestar Dream and Lonestar Taproot developed mining sites in Pyote and Tarbush. Together, the original sites covered about 150.5 acres and included buildings, electrical infrastructure, substations, mining equipment and power rights.

The expansion ran into a basic constraint.

Early discussions indicated that up to 600 megawatts might be allocated to the sites. Only 100 megawatts was initially allocated, according to the declaration.

Poolin had ordered equipment for the larger buildout. The excess hardware strained working capital and was later sold at discounts.

The debtors’ unaudited books record about $8.8 million in equipment-sale losses from fiscal 2023 through fiscal 2025.

The Texas companies never became profitable. Their cumulative losses reached approximately $45.9 million.

Mining and hosting operations ended on July 10.

The sale process had already begun.

DuFrayne’s firm contacted more than 335 strategic and financial prospects over a three-month marketing campaign. Twenty-eight signed nondisclosure agreements, and seven submitted letters of intent.

Two offers covered Pyote, three covered Tarbush assets and two covered both campuses. Three additional parties expressed interest in the auction.

Thor CALAP emerged with the opening bids.

Its offer assigns $15 million to the Pyote property, power rights and related assets. The Tarbush power rights, equipment and other assets carry a separate $37 million bid.

The total is $52 million.

A stalking-horse bid sets a protected floor for an auction. It is not a completed sale, and another qualified bidder can offer more.

The bankruptcy court still has to approve the bidding procedures and any final transaction.

The public docket identifies case 26-18325-EJO as a voluntary Chapter 11 filed in the District of New Jersey. The case includes Poolin Technology, Lonestar Dream and Lonestar Taproot.

The voluntary petition identifies the same three debtors and estimates 10,001 to 25,000 creditors. It places assets between $1 million and $10 million and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million.

The petition says funds should be available for distribution to unsecured creditors. That checked box signals anticipated estate value after secured and priority claims; it is not a promised payout percentage for wallet customers.

It does not say how much each wallet holder will recover, when distributions could begin or whether any user claims will be challenged in court. No creditor recovery table is attached.

Sale proceeds from either mining site enter the bankruptcy estate and remain subject to expenses, claims, priority rules and court approval.

A higher auction price would help, but the $163.7 million wallet balance makes the scale of the shortfall plain.

The sites may also attract buyers that have little interest in Bitcoin mining.

Poolin’s management says demand for artificial-intelligence and high-performance-computing infrastructure has shifted sharply. It believes the energy capabilities at Pyote and Tarbush may be worth more to AI and data-center operators.

That could lift the final auction above the opening bid.

Even a substantially higher price would have a long distance to travel before it matched the wallet IOUs alone.

Poolin’s collapse began before the current filing. China’s mining ban broke the company’s original operating base.

The 2022 credit unwind froze its wallet customers. The Texas pivot then lost tens of millions of dollars.

Chapter 11 finally puts those pieces in one public ledger.

The mining sites have a $52 million floor. The customers are holding $163.7 million in unsecured promises.

The auction can change the first number.

The bankruptcy case will decide what the second one is ultimately worth.

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