Hut 8 wins bid for Poolin's Texas data centers with $140 million offer

Hut 8 became the winning bidder for bankrupt crypto miner Poolin's Pyote and Tarbush data center sites with a $140 million cash and other consideration offer. A Wednesday court filing disclosed the winning bid. The deal requires approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey before finalization. A sale hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29. Hut 8's offer was nearly triple the combined $52 million in opening stalking-horse bids from Thor CALAP. Thor CALAP offered $15 million for Pyote. Thor CALAP offered $37 million for Tarbush. DigiPower X submitted a separate backup bid of $36.5 million for Pyote. Pecos Industrial Development submitted a $100.5 million backup bid for Tarbush as a designee of AI infrastructure firm Fluidstack. Poolin and two U.S. affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July. The companies had wound down mining and hosting operations at the Texas sites. Court filings placed Poolin's obligations at around $173.1 million. The obligations included approximately $163.7 million in unsecured IOUs to Poolin Wallet users. Poolin froze withdrawals in 2022. The acquisition would add to Hut 8's data center portfolio. Hut 8 is moving deeper into AI infrastructure. Hut 8 reported an approximately 8.7 gigawatt development pipeline in its August second-quarter earnings report. The pipeline increased by around 300 megawatts from the previous quarter. Hut 8 secured 949 megawatts of contracted AI infrastructure capacity. The capacity represented an estimated $26.6 billion in expected contract value across its River Bend and Beacon Point campuses. Beacon Point received a conditional Base Load classification through ERCOT's Batch Zero process earlier this month. The classification allows Beacon Point to keep the amount of power it requested while ERCOT completes its review. Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot said demand was robust. Genoot said everyone wanted capacity.