Poolin, a Bitcoin mining pool, has officially filed for bankruptcy, with liabilities totaling approximately $173.1 million.

BlockBeats News, July 25th - Singapore-based Poolin Technology Pte. Ltd. and its two US subsidiaries, Lonestar Dream and Lonestar Taproot, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a US New Jersey court on July 22nd, marking one of the most significant institutional collapses in the mining sector in recent years.

Court documents revealed that Poolin's liabilities were between $1 billion and $5 billion, specifically around $173.1 million, while its assets were less than $10 million. The number of creditors ranged from 10,000 to 25,000. The largest debt of about $163.7 million involved approximately 11,700 "Poolin Wallet" users - the origin of this debt can be traced back to September 2022 when, due to the crypto market crash, Poolin misappropriated user assets for lending, leading to liquidation. Subsequently, wallet withdrawals and account withdrawals were frozen, claiming to face "liquidity issues," and using IOU token notes to replace returning users' actual bitcoins. This debt has remained unpaid for three years.

Poolin, founded in 2017 in Beijing by Bitmain veterans Kevin Pan and Fa Zhu, once controlled about 18%-20% of the entire network's hashrate at its peak in 2019, making it one of the world's largest Bitcoin mining pools at that time. Following the mining ban in 2021, the company shifted its operations to Texas, USA. However, due to a severe shortage of electricity quota applications (originally expected 600 megawatts, only actually received 100 megawatts), the company was forced to sell off idle equipment at a low price, resulting in approximately $8.8 million in losses between 2023 and 2025. The Texas operation accumulated losses of nearly $45.9 million, and it was permanently shut down on July 10th with no plans to restart.

The company's only hope for debt repayment is to auction off two West Texas mining assets. Thor CALAP LLC has submitted a $52 million "stalking horse bid" as the auction's starting price. However, this amount is far from enough to cover the total debt of $173 million. Creditors are expected to only receive partial repayment.