A major bitcoin mining company has filed a petition for bankruptcy protection

CoinTerra, one of the most important bitcoin miners, has declared its bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court. It means that all of its assets, estimated at between $10 and $50 million, will probably be liquidated in order to repay its creditors. CoinTerra submitted a list of its creditors, which includes companies and private citizens from the US and other countries, and stated it would be unable to repay unsecured investors. CoinTerra’s website is no longer available; in its place there is an image stating that the company filed for bankruptcy.

Just a few months ago, CoinTerra was making plans for further development and expansion. The situation changed by the beginning of 2015: the company was apparently having debt problems and it also became the target of a lawsuit by C7 Data Centers, a Utah-based data center operator that demanded $1.4 million in unpaid service fees and $4 million in damages.  

CoinTerra was one of the large mining companies that replaced individual miners of the first years of bitcoin. However, the falling price of bitcoin made mining less profitable, forcing the large mining companies to adjust their strategies. A recent example is the mining company BitFury, which purchased Allied Control, a top immersion cooling company based in Hong Kong. The cooling provided by this company would allow to use computers for mining in places with warmer climates. But not everyone had the time to change their strategy.