The latest casualty of the difficult crypto market conditions is a company that was developing a mining facility in Ohio that would have used nuclear energy.
Statar Mining has acquired Lake Parime, a business based in the UK that specializes in converting energy into carbon-free computing power.
According to restructuring expert Interpath Advisory, the group’s recently acquired bitcoin mining equipment lost value as bitcoin prices dropped. Ed Boyle and Will Wright of Interpath were appointed joint administrators of Lake Parime Limited in January. 27.
A number of projects Lake Parime had invested in “fell away,” according to Interpath, leaving the company in “an immediate cash crisis.”
The advisory firm added that no solvent solution could be discovered. 16 employees of Lake Parime have joined the acquirer as a result of the sale to Statar Mining.
The sale occurs after Compute North and Core Scientific declared bankruptcy in recent months, and experts in the field had predicted that this year would see more casualties in the mining sector.
“The current crypto winter has posed challenges for many companies operating across the crypto spectrum,” Boyle stated in a statement. “In this case, the decline in the price of bitcoin over the course of 2022 was more than 60%, which in turn affected Lake Parime’s capacity to raise capital.”
Where Statar Mining is headquartered is not known. It was impossible to contact the business.
Requests for comments from the Lake Parime and Interpath Advisory spokespeople were not immediately fulfilled.
Nuclear Energy Could Still Play a Larger Role in Bitcoin Mining
In November, Lake Parime announced that a site in Ohio had been launched entirely with nuclear energy.
“We’re excited to expand our site portfolio from largely wind and hydropower to nuclear energy, showcasing the huge potential of our deployments in accelerating the energy transition,” In a statement at the time, Sath Ganesarajah, the CEO of Lake Parime, said.
Marathon Digital and TeraWulf executives expressed optimism about the possibility of more bitcoin miners using nuclear energy on a large scale in the years to come to Blockworks last week. If the power industry cooperates, they believe that this will happen. In Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, a data center powered by nuclear energy will house TeraWulf’s operations, the company recently revealed.
Marathon Digital and TAAL, a provider of blockchain infrastructure and services, were clients of Lake Parime’s 20 megawatt Ohio site.
Charlie Schumacher, Marathon’s vice president of corporate communications, told Blockworks last week the Ohio site is a good way for Marathon to “test the waters” about potentially using nuclear energy on a larger scale.
It is unknown how Marathon’s operations at the location will be impacted by the sale. Response to a request for comment from a company spokesperson was delayed.
