Poolin, the fourth largest Bitcoin mining pool by hashrate , announced a temporary pause on withdrawals to preserve “assets, stabilize liquidity, and operations in the midst of the dull crypto market,” according to a company blog post. Miners responded by yanking hashrate away from the pool, now down 30% to 19 EH/s.

The announcement follows weeks long rumors about the firm’s internal stability.

It’s unclear what the actual cause of the firm’s liquidity issues are. Poolin’s mining arm is still seeking the green light from the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) for a few-hundred megawatt (MW) site in Texas that remains idle. The firm had projects with both defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) and troubled lending product BlockFi for mining financial services. 

Poolin was also heavily involved in the Chinese mining scene before the abrupt banning of mining in the country. For example, the pool had to halt withdrawals of its tokenized hashrate product ‘pBTC35a’ last summer as its machines found new homes abroad.
 

For now, Poolin maintains that assets are #safu while it “explores strategic alternatives with various parties” to restore financial safety. Stay tuned!