BTC Miner Core Scientific Raises $500M From BlackRock, Ibex Investors (Report)

The US-based bitcoin miner – Core Scientific – reportedly secured a $500 million fundraiser led by leading finance players, such as BlackRock, Apollo Capital, Kensico Capital, Ibex Investors, and others.

The company filed for bankruptcy protection at the end of last year but continued mining BTC to repay debtholders.

Traditional Finance Firms Flocking to Help

According to a court filing seen by Bloomberg, BlackRock and several other high-profile investors lent approximately $500 million to Core Scientific by purchasing its secured convertible notes. Ibex Investors was the largest contributor to the financing, lending nearly $100 million.

BlackRock loaned $38 million through note purchases, while Apollo Capital Management bought $22.6 million and $11 million in April and August, respectively.

Both asset managers gave away $23 million in total to Core Scientific’s debtor-in-possession loan so it could continue mining bitcoin despite its problems. 

The prolonged bear market and the plummeting price of the primary digital asset significantly harmed the crypto miner, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a few days before Christmas. Despite that, the entity saw the price of its shares rise in the following weeks. Currently, CORZQ trades at around $0.11, compared to the $0.05 marked nearly a month ago.

However, its market capitalization of around $41 million stands far from the $4.3 billion reached at the beginning of 2022 (upon getting listed on Nasdaq).

Mining Remains Unfazed

Regardless of its multi-billion losses registered in 2022, the dismissed employees, and the bankruptcy filing, Core Scientific mined 1,435 BTC in December. In comparison, the November production was 1,356 BTC. It also increased its self-mining hashrate from 15.4 EH/s to 15.7 EH/s.

In addition, the organization provided data center colocation services and operating support for 91,000 customer-owned ASIC servers (in November) and 80,500 (in December), representing approximately 37% and 34% of the functioning mining fleet in those months. Those servers produced 795 BTC in November and 931 BTC in the following month.

The results came in spite of the numerous closures of data centers, which represented 5,828 and 17,179 megawatt hours (in November and December, respectively). Core revealed it has teamed up with utility companies to ensure power grid stability.

Its main facilities remain distributed in Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, North Dakota, and North Carolina.