Poolin’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, filed 22 July in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, centres on a court-supervised sale of two West Texas mining sites with a $52 million stalking-horse floor and roughly 11,700 IOU-holding wallet customers waiting at the back of the creditor queue.
The IOU Overhang That Triggered the Filing
Singapore-registered Poolin Technology Pte. Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiaries, Lonestar Dream Inc. and Lonestar Taproot LLC, filed voluntary petitions under Case No. 26-18325, according to a U.S. Trustee solicitation issued 24 July 2026 seeking interest in forming an official unsecured-creditors committee.
Of the $173.1 million in prepetition obligations declared by Chief Restructuring Officer Michael DuFrayne, roughly $163.7 million traces to unsecured IOUs distributed to Poolin Wallet customers after withdrawals were suspended in September 2022. Around 11,700 users held balances above $100 when those tokens were issued.
The sequence that produced that liability is laid out in the Chapter 11 declaration. Poolin transferred customer collateral to Antalpha Technologies and borrowed approximately $213 million against cryptocurrency then valued at around $355.8 million, using the proceeds to build the Texas facilities, buy mining machines and fund withdrawals. When prices kept falling, Antalpha liquidated the collateral in November 2022, at which point bitcoin had dropped below approximately $16,800, according to case filings cited by Bondoro. Management estimated at the time that the company owed about $260 million against digital assets valued at roughly $265 million.
Lonestar Dream and Lonestar Taproot accumulated losses of approximately $45.9 million since their formation. Remaining assets are thin: roughly $1.2 million in a New Jersey bank account, an office lease and an intercompany claim.
Poolin Chapter 11 Creditors Face a Long Queue
Kevin Pan, who co-founded Poolin in China in 2017, holds 100% of the equity in both Poolin Technology Pte. Ltd. and Lonestar Dream Inc., with Lonestar Taproot wholly owned by Lonestar Dream, according to equity-holder filings cited by The Block. That structure means Pan sits at the bottom of any recovery waterfall.
DuFrayne was appointed CRO on or about 14 November 2025, with DuFrayne LLC retained as investment banker from around 3 February 2026. The marketing process ran for roughly three months, reaching more than 335 prospective buyers across mining, AI infrastructure, hyperscale data centre operators, private equity and REITs.
That outreach produced 28 signed NDAs and seven letters of intent covering individual sites and the combined portfolio. Before the Pyote and Tarbush facilities ceased operations on 10 July 2026, Elektron Energy was Lonestar Dream’s primary hosting client under four hosting agreements. A settlement dated 22 June 2026 resolved billing disputes between the debtors and Elektron; recalculated power-usage-effectiveness figures leave a $1,344,788.13 balance owed to Lonestar Dream for the March 2025 to March 2026 period, held in escrow pending release conditions, according to a case summary published by ElevenFlo.
Mining Sites Draw AI Buyers
The stalking-horse agreements with Thor CALAP LLC set the auction floor at $52 million: a $15 million offer for the Pyote property including power rights and equipment, and a separate $37 million bid for Tarbush’s power rights and equipment (excluding the surface-use agreement). Each site can be sold independently under U.S. Bankruptcy Court Section 363 procedures if separate bids produce better creditor recoveries.
The declaration notes that AI infrastructure operators drove meaningful interest during marketing because of the sites’ existing grid connections and electrical capacity, even as Poolin’s own mining and hosting business had become unprofitable. That demand pattern is visible across the sector: Ionic Digital recently secured SEC approval for a Nasdaq listing after repositioning toward AI infrastructure, and IREN acquired Spain’s Nostrum Group in June to add roughly 490 megawatts of grid-connected power for AI cloud expansion in Europe.
Poolin’s path is different. It is liquidating rather than pivoting, and IOU holders will only see distributions if the auction clears enough to cover administrative costs and a liquidation plan wins court approval. The unsecured-creditors committee, if formed, will be the one body with standing to push for a higher price.
