Previously accounted for 20% of the global hashrate — Bitcoin mining pool Poolin files for bankruptcy in Hong Kong, with users owing $160 million, and repayment has been delayed for four years without being recovered

Poolin, a Bitcoin mining pool run by Poolin, filed a Chapter 11 petition with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey this week on July 22. The company’s total liabilities amount to $173.1 million, of which $163.7 million is unsecured debt owed to about 11,700 wallet users, accumulated since its freezing of withdrawals in September 2022 to the present.
(Background: Did Poolin “run off with the money”? Founder: It’s because of a lack of liquidity that withdrawals became difficult; users’ mining pool assets are safe)
(Additional context: Owed creditors, new moves! Poolin announced the issuance of 6 IOU (I Owe You) tokens to make up for the debts and promised future buybacks)

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• From glory to ruin: a leveraged mining pool gambling scheme
• IOU notes defaulted for nearly four years; $163.7 million remains the largest single liability
• $52 million sells mining facilities; users may not get back 30% of what they are owed

Poolin, a mining pool operator that once held nearly 20% of the world’s Bitcoin mining hash rate at its 2019 peak, has officially filed for Chapter 11 protection with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey on July 22, 2026.

This mining-pool giant, built from the ground up by three founders from within the Bitmain ecosystem, ultimately could not make it through nearly four years of liquidation. Since withdrawals were frozen in September 2022, the company has accumulated debts totaling $163.7 million owed to about 11,700 users—money that remains unpaid to this day.

From glory to ruin: a leveraged mining pool gambling scheme

Poolin was co-founded by Pan Zhibiao and two other partners, all of whom came from the Bitmain ecosystem. According to Glassnode data, at the height of 2019, Poolin’s global hash rate share once reached 18% to 20%, firmly placing it among the top two mining pools worldwide at the time.

But charging mining fees was originally a business with stable cash flow and relatively low risk, and Poolin clearly was not content with just that. The company expanded into cryptocurrency wallet and wealth management lending services. As long as users deposit assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum into the Poolin Wallet as collateral, the company promises an annualized yield ranging from 2% to 8.8%, essentially using customers’ crypto assets to conduct leveraged lending.

In 2022, mainland China fully cleared out Bitcoin mining, compounded by the bear market crash in the crypto market in the same year. Poolin, which had expanded its footprint through leveraged financing, immediately exposed a liquidity shortfall. In September of the same year, Poolin Wallet unexpectedly suspended all withdrawals. User deposits were forcibly converted into six IOU (I Owe You) tokens with different codes, and the company promised it would repurchase and redeem them in the future.

IOU notes have been hanging for nearly four years; $163.7 million remains the largest single liability

This IOU note has been hanging for nearly four years. The Chapter 11 petition filed with the New Jersey bankruptcy court shows that three entities—Poolin Technology Pte. Ltd., registered in Singapore, and its U.S. related entities Lonestar Dream and Lonestar Taproot—filed Chapter 11 petitions at the same time. Before bankruptcy, total liabilities were $173.1 million, while reported assets were only in the range of $1 million to $10 million. Cash on hand is even down to about $1.2 million.

Of the $173.1 million in liabilities, unsecured IOU claims owed to about 11,700 Poolin Wallet users total $163.7 million, the largest single liability item in this case. In other words, nearly 95% of Poolin’s bankruptcy debts are money owed to its own users. In its petition documents, the company also confirmed that on July 10 this year, it had permanently stopped all mining and mining facility hosting operations. It currently only keeps a very small number of staff to oversee equipment and to support the subsequent asset sale process.

Selling mining facilities for $52 million; users may not recover 30% of what they are owed

The key to how much users can recover will come from the next asset sales. Under the bankruptcy law’s Section 363 process, Poolin has selected Thor CALAP LLC to act as the “stalking horse” bidder and to submit acquisition offers for the company’s mining facility assets located in West Texas: the Pyote assets are valued at $15 million, and the Tarbush related assets at $37 million, for a total bid value of $52 million.

The $52 million asset sale price, compared with the $163.7 million in users’ IOU claims, shows a gap of more than three times between the two. Even if the acquisition deal is completed successfully, after subtracting costs such as attorneys’ fees and management fees from the bankruptcy process itself, the actual recovery rate for unsecured creditors is likely to be less than 30%.

This also means that Poolin’s Chapter 11 filing is, in name, a “reorganization,” but in reality it is closer to a liquidation-style asset sell-off.