Poolin Technology Pte Ltd, the Singapore-incorporated parent of once-dominant Bitcoin mining pool Poolin, filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey on Wednesday. Its two U.S. subsidiaries, Lonestar Dream LLC and Lonestar Taproot LLC, which operate mining sites in Tarbush and Pyote, Texas, are included in the filing. The company lists total liabilities of approximately $173 million against stated assets of between $1 million and $10 million, with roughly $1.2 million in cash remaining at the time of filing. Between 10,001 and 25,000 creditors are named in the case.

The most significant liability is not owed to institutional lenders. Approximately 11,700 wallet account holders are collectively owed $163.7 million in frozen IOUs, unsecured promissory notes that Poolin issued in September 2022 after suspending withdrawals from its PoolinWallet service. The company had halted customer withdrawals of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Litecoin, Zcash, and Dogecoin simultaneously, then distributed IOU tokens on a one-for-one basis to replace the frozen balances. Those tokens have sat unredeemable for nearly four years. With the $52 million stalking-horse bid setting the floor for asset recovery, and with the net value to the estate potentially lower than that figure because the Tarbush bid includes assumed liabilities absorbed by the buyer, IOU holders face roughly 30 cents recovered for every dollar owed as a ceiling, not a realistic floor. That figure assumes all proceeds flowed exclusively to IOU holders, which they would not: secured and administrative claims are paid first, meaning actual recovery for the unsecured IOU class could be materially lower.

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How a Pool Giant Collapsed

Poolin was founded in China in 2017 and by 2019 had grown to control approximately 12 percent of the entire Bitcoin network's computing power, making it the largest mining pool in the world by hashrate. China's comprehensive ban on cryptocurrency mining in May 2021 forced the company to relocate physical operations abroad. It established its two Texas facilities under the Lonestar corporate names (the subsidiary Lonestar Taproot referenced Bitcoin's Taproot protocol upgrade, which activated in November 2021, reflecting the company's technical engagement at the time of relocation) and continued operating as a pool for miners globally.

The structural break came in mid-2022. As Bitcoin's price fell below $20,000 that June, Tether, which had extended credit against the pledged collateral, began issuing margin calls against crypto assets that Poolin Wallet had posted as security.

By November 2022, Bitcoin had dropped further to below $16,800, and Antalpha, a lender affiliated with mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain, liquidated the collateral backing a loan it had originally extended to Poolin for approximately $213 million. That collateral had been valued at roughly $355.8 million when the loan was originated. According to the 2026 bankruptcy filings, management estimated that approximately $260 million was then owed to Antalpha, collateralized by approximately $265 million in digital assets at that time, illustrating how severely the collateral position had deteriorated from its original $355.8 million valuation.

Within months of the September 2022 withdrawal freeze, Poolin's share of Bitcoin network hashrate fell from roughly 12 percent to around 4 percent as miners migrated to competing pools. By July 10, 2026, both Texas sites had ceased operations. The company's current share of Bitcoin network hashrate stands at 0.2 percent, ranking it 17th globally. Before filing, the company ran a three-month sale process that contacted more than 335 potential buyers, including AI infrastructure operators, hyperscalers, real estate investment trusts, and rival miners. That process produced 28 non-disclosure agreements and 7 letters of intent. Thor CALAP LLC emerged as the stalking-horse bidder, offering $37 million for the Tarbush site (which includes power rights, equipment, and facility assets, along with assumed liabilities to be absorbed by the buyer) and $15 million for the Pyote site.

The two Texas subsidiaries have collectively lost approximately $45.9 million since formation.

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What This Means Outside the United States

Poolin's wallet service was never a U.S.-only product. It was marketed globally and drew users from Asia, Africa, and South Asia, many of them small-to-medium-scale operators who used Poolin as an intermediary rather than receiving mining payouts directly to self-custodied wallets.

That custodial pool wallet arrangement is precisely what created the cascade: when the pool operator faced liquidity pressure, customer funds were swept into the crisis with no direct recourse.

This is a pointed warning for Africa's rapidly expanding mining sector. Ethiopia, though it paused new mining power permits in 2025, now contributes roughly 2.5 percent of global Bitcoin hashrate, and Kenya, Nigeria, and several other countries are actively building out mining infrastructure, often relying on international pool operators for hashrate aggregation. Africa's total hashrate is projected to reach 6 to 8 percent of global hashrate by the end of 2026.

Kenya's VASP Act of 2025 introduced licensing requirements for virtual asset service providers, and Nigeria lifted its banking ban on crypto entities, but whether either country has established explicit rules governing how mining pools must handle custodial wallet balances has not been definitively established and warrants review by regulators and legal specialists in both jurisdictions.

Poolin's case argues for exactly that kind of regulatory clarity.

Texas's Senate Bill 6, signed in June 2025, added further compliance costs by requiring large grid-connected loads, including mining operations, to install mandatory remote disconnection capability under ERCOT oversight, demanding capital expenditure for remote disconnection retrofits on sites already bleeding cash. That regulatory shift compounded Poolin's financial pressures and adds context to why AI infrastructure operators and hyperscalers were among the most interested prospective buyers. Power-rich sites can be repurposed; distressed mining companies cannot easily be restructured.

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What Comes Next

The bid deadline for competing offers on the Texas assets is September 8, 2026. If qualifying overbids emerge, an auction will be held; if no overbids emerge, the stalking-horse offer becomes the basis for the sale, subject to court approval.

IOU holders and other creditors will then face the claims process in New Jersey federal court, a proceeding that could be complicated for claimants in jurisdictions without established bankruptcy treaty arrangements with the United States or Singapore. Poolin's co-founders, including Kevin Zhang, had not issued public statements regarding the filing as of publication time.

Poolin is not alone in its difficulties. NFN8 Group filed for Chapter 11 in February 2026, and Bitfarms shifted away from Bitcoin mining toward AI data center infrastructure in late 2025. Global Bitcoin hashrate has plateaued near 1,020 exahashes per second, while production costs for many operators are estimated above $64,000 per coin, a threshold that has exceeded recent market prices and compressed margins across the industry.

The industry's consolidation continues, with U.S.-based pools controlling roughly 40 percent of global hashrate and Chinese-affiliated pools holding approximately 55 percent. Poolin's trajectory from 12 percent of the network to near-total collapse illustrates how quickly that concentration can shift.

Verse Press will continue tracking the New Jersey court docket and the September 8 auction deadline. Readers with claims in the Poolin wallet freeze can follow proceedings through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey.