TL;DR
- Hut 8 has been named the winning bidder for two Poolin data-center sites in Texas with a $140 million offer.
- The bid is nearly three times the combined $52 million stalking-horse offer that opened the auction process.
- The transaction is not final: bankruptcy-court approval is still required at a hearing scheduled for September 29.
Hut 8 has emerged as the winning bidder for two Texas data-center sites owned by bankrupt mining company Poolin, putting $140 million on the table for infrastructure that could extend well beyond Bitcoin mining.
The bid covers Poolin’s Pyote and Tarbush locations.
The Auction Escalated Well Beyond The Opening Offer
The bankruptcy process began with combined stalking-horse bids of $52 million.
Thor CALAP had offered $15 million for the Pyote campus and $37 million for Tarbush.
Competition pushed the final number dramatically higher.
Other bidders included DigiPower X and Pecos Industrial Development, acting as a designee of AI infrastructure company Fluidstack.
Hut 8 ultimately came out on top with an offer worth $140 million in cash and other consideration.
Poolin entered Chapter 11 in July with roughly $173 million of obligations, much of it tied to IOUs owed to users of Poolin Wallet after withdrawals were frozen in 2022.
Winning The Auction Does Not Mean The Sale Is Closed
There is one procedural point that matters here.
Hut 8 has won the auction.
It has not yet completed the acquisition.
The proposed sale still requires approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, with a hearing scheduled for September 29.
Until that happens, the transaction should be treated as a winning bid rather than a closed purchase.
For Hut 8, the attraction is easy to understand.
The company has been moving beyond its roots as a pure Bitcoin miner and deeper into large-scale data-center and AI infrastructure.
Power access has become one of the most valuable assets in that market.
Poolin’s Texas sites could therefore have value that extends well beyond how many Bitcoin miners can fit inside them.
The auction price itself makes that clear.
A process that began around $52 million ended with a $140 million winning bid.
That is a strong signal that buyers are increasingly valuing mining sites for their grid access and broader compute potential, not just their ability to hash Bitcoin.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
