Marble – Core Scientific, one of the biggest publicly traded cryptocurrency mining companies in the United States, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Dec. 21.
Texas-based Core, which operates a plant in Marble, attributed its bankruptcy to declining bitcoin prices, rising energy costs for bitcoin mining and a $7 million unpaid debt from industry lending firm Celsius Network, one of its largest customers.
Core’s bankruptcy is the latest in a series of failures across the crypto sector. More than one trillion dollars in value has been erased from the industry this year.
Core is also facing a class action lawsuit filed following the company’s late October warnings that it was heading towards bankruptcy if it could not improve its financial condition. That admission dropped its shares 98.67 percent to 18 U.S. cents. Those shares had further fallen to 11 cents as of Monday, following the bankruptcy filing.
Director of Construction Jack Lewis said in November that Core Scientific’s financial turmoil had yet to have an impact on the company’s flagship plant in Cherokee County.
Core’s plant in Marble has about 50 employees and Lewis estimates that the company pumps roughly $20 million into the local economy of Cherokee and surrounding counties each year.
“Right now, the day-to-day operations of the company are unaffected,” Lewis said in November. There’s no indication it will affect us. We’re running just like we always have. We’ve actually expanded our staff slightly in the last couple of months, and we’ll continue to move forward.”
Core’s financial issues stem from a variety of circumstances, but they are closely linked to the company’s legal dispute with Celsius. Core argued in an Oct. 19 filing that Celsius already owed the company more than $2.1 million at that time. Celsius countered that Core delayed the deployment of its mining rigs and supplied less power than required under an existing contract.
While Core struggled to meet its financial obligations at a larger level late this year, Lewis said that was not the case in Cherokee County.
“We’re still doing all of our obligations, financially, within the local community,” he said. “We just put a new roof on the building that was over $2 million, and we paid that. All of those obligations are still being paid, and all of our employees are still on the payroll.”
Core purchased the plant in Marble in 2017 and first production began in 2018. The company has since expanded to include facilities in Georgia, Kentucky, Texas and North Dakota.
“Marble is still the premier one,” Lewis said. “Everybody wants their machines at Marble.”
Core’s site in Marble is one of three crypto mining operations in Cherokee County.
Crypto mining has been a hot-button issue within the county for more than a year, largely due to the crypto operation on Harshaw Road outside of Murphy. Nearby residents have complained about ongoing noise pollution from the Harshaw Road site, run by Exponential Digital/Ankr, which also operates a site in Ranger.