Bitcoin Mining Host Compute North Paid Executives $3M on the Day It Declared Bankruptcy

Executives at Compute North, an owner data centers where bitcoin (BTC) miners host their machines, received about $3 million in payroll and bonuses on the same day that the company filed for bankruptcy, a court filing shows.

Compute North filed for Chapter 11 on Sept. 22, succumbing to the rout in cryptocurrency prices and rising electricity costs. But even as that bankruptcy filing put a freeze on payments to creditors, executives received large payouts.

The company paid co-founder and former CEO Dave Perrill $613,000 for payroll and benefits, according to the filing. Former CFO Tad Piper got $541,000 three months after he left the company, President Edward Drake Harvey III and Chief Commercial Officer Kyle Wenzel got about $500,000 each, former Chief Technology Officer Nelu Mihai received $340,000, Chief Legal Officer Jason Stokes was paid $325,000 and newly appointed Chief Financial Officer Harold Coulby received about $250,000, the filing shows.

The document also reveals a series of companies owned at least partially by Perrill with which Compute North did business. These companies received around $350,000 in payments in the past year for leasing office space and services.

Compute North representatives did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

The company’s collapse into bankruptcy has reverberated across an industry that is already struggling amid a sluggish bitcoin price and high energy prices. Two other major mining firms, Core Scientific (CORZ) and Argo Blockchain (ARBK), said in the past week that they might soon become cash flow negative.

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