Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_62bbcd26cbeaf" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Compass&#8217; board of directors has appointed Chief Technology Officer Paul Gosker and Chief Mining Officer Thomas Heller as interim co-presidents and CEOs</li>
 <li>The appointments come as Compass has been caught up in a string of accusations from crypto hosting firm Dynamics Mining over Compass&#8217; alleged failure to meet its power consumption charges</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Bitcoin mining and hosting firm Compass Mining has appointed two new interim CEOs following the resignation of the firm&#8217;s head Whitney Gibbs and Chief Financial Officer Jodie Fisher.



The embattled mining company — supplier of ASICs and operator of bitcoin mining operations — said Tuesday it has appointed Chief Technology Officer Paul Gosker and Chief Mining Officer Thomas Heller as interim co-presidents and CEOs.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;Through this restructuring, the company is wholly focused on regaining the goodwill of our stakeholders and the community, as well as delivering on our mission of providing best-in-class service for miners of all sizes,&#8221; Compass said in a <a href="https://compassmining.io/education/compass-mining-announces-ceo-resignation-and-naming-of-interim-leadership/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">company post</a> Monday via its website.</blockquote>



Compass&#8217; board of directors will begin seeking out a permanent president, CEO and CFO immediately, the firm said. The appointments come as Compass has been caught up in a string of accusations by hosting firm Dynamics Mining over its alleged failure to meet its power consumption charges. 



Blockworks attempted to contact Compass but did not receive a response by press time. Blockworks also spoke with one employee who declined to comment.



Dynamics, which had a contract with Compass, said it terminated its &#8220;Master Hosting Service Agreement&#8221; with the Delaware-based supplier earlier this month, citing six late payments and three nonpayments, the company said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/DynamicsMining/status/1541262827096358912?s=20&amp;t=gY1fUlOyqcCIxybvZ-BUeQ">tweet</a> Sunday.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">For clarity <a href="https://twitter.com/compass_mining?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@compass_mining</a> power consumption <a href="https://twitter.com/Dynamics2k?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Dynamics2k</a> totaled $1.2 million and they only paid $415k and $250k initial power deposits. Compass claims that they gave money to <a href="https://twitter.com/Dynamics2k?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Dynamics2k</a> but the money was used to build out their facilities. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/truth?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#truth</a> <a href="https://t.co/9esvuCFulO">pic.twitter.com/9esvuCFulO</a>&mdash; DynamicsMining (@DynamicsMining) <a href="https://twitter.com/DynamicsMining/status/1541403191815950337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



In a June 10 <a href="https://twitter.com/DynamicsMining/status/1541262827096358912?s=20&amp;t=Kbmo6bc7PXrlvobbE4HJ3A" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">letter</a> to Gibbs from law firm Gordon, Fournaris &amp; Mammarella, P.A., acting on behalf of Dynamics, Compass is accused of failing to pay its utility bill as well as monthly hosting fees. Oxford and Lewiston, both Dynamics facilities maintained by Compass, also failed to make payments in violation of the agreement, the law firm said.



&#8220;All you had to was pay $250k for 3 months of power consumption,&#8221; Dynamics said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/DynamicsMining/status/1541568140118745089?s=20&amp;t=gY1fUlOyqcCIxybvZ-BUeQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">follow-up tweet</a> on Monday. &#8220;Since you don&#8217;t give your clients their Serial Numbers I couldn&#8217;t even help them. Twitter is the voice of your customer base, not the courtroom.&#8221;



Compass, however, denied the accusations levied against it, claiming Dynamics &#8220;misunderstood&#8221; the contracts it had signed with respect to Dynamics&#8217; facilities, according to a <a href="https://compassmining.io/education/compass-mining-denies-dynamics-facility-allegations/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">separate post</a> late Tuesday.



&#8220;Compass has performed all of its obligations under its contracts with Dynamics, including its financial obligations,&#8221; the firm said. Dynamics operates approximately 1% of Compass Mining’s contracted capacity, according to Compass.



Accusations against Compass come as large numbers of bitcoin miners face <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crashing-prices-expose-bitcoin-mining-industrys-addiction-to-leverage/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">possible liquidation</a> after taking out high-interest loans to fund their spending habits when bitcoin prices were relatively buoyant.



Depressed crypto prices, accelerated by recent developments with Terra&#8217;s stablecoin <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=Terra" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">collapse</a> and crypto lender Celsius&#8217; <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=Celsius" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">liquidity woes</a>, now appear to be eating into profitability margins for the mining hosting firms supplying the picks and shovels to crypto miners.



Miners rely on three main areas for keeping business activity out of the red, including a higher bitcoin price, lower or cheaper electricity prices and access to high-performance specialty mining rigs known as ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits).



All three elements, amid the market downturn, are now causing headaches for miners, as well as their creditors and other counterparties including mining operators and ASIC suppliers.



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Compass Mining Appoints Two Interim CEOs in Bid To Rekindle ‘Goodwill’

Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_62223ef8c67f5" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Another former Block executive joined crypto payment company MobileCoin</li>
 <li>An ex-Citi executive was tapped to lead the growth of the Provenance Blockchain</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Ledger named Alex Zinder as vice president of Ledger Enterprise Solutions, as the executive will also join the company’s executive committee.



Zinder joined <a href="https://enterprise.ledger.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ledger Enterprise</a> in March 2021 after almost two decades in capital markets technology. He previously worked at Nasdaq in director of global software development and associate vice president of enterprise architecture roles.



Zinder will lead Ledger Enterprise Interact, a newly launched set of solutions allowing clients to manage interactions in smart contract-enabled protocols that support staking, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other decentralized finance (DeFi) opportunities.



Compass Mining hired Jodie Fisher as its chief financial officer and Ro Shirole as its chief growth officer as the online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting and reselling seeks to streamline its growth.



Fisher has taken companies through seed rounds, private equity financing, exit strategies and initial public offerings during her time as the CFO of several early stage technology companies and a controller at IBM.



Shirole, who was formerly vice president of business development at digital currency infrastructure company Compute North, will focus on expanding Compass’s reach from serving retail clients to also serving funds, family offices and institutional clients.



Crypto payment company MobileCoin added Alan Paulin as its vice president of engineering. Paulin joins from Block (<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/jack-dorseys-square-to-change-its-name-to-block/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">formerly Square</a>), where he was director of engineering.&nbsp;



Paulin has also worked as a senior development lead at Microsoft, where he helped design Virtual Earth, and later was a senior software engineer at Google.



He becomes the second former Block employee to join MobileCoin, as Bob Lee, who was Block’s chief technology officer from 2010 to 2014 became the crypto business’s chief product officer in December.



The Provenance Blockchain Foundation named former Citi executive Morgan McKenney as its CEO. She will seek to partner with financial institutions, fintechs and developers to drive adoption of the open source, public blockchain, which is designed specifically for the financial services industry.



McKenney most recently served as special adviser at Centre, a consortium to promote the use of fiat-backed stablecoins. She also spent nearly 20 years at Citi in a range of senior executive roles, including chief operating officer for global consumer banking.



Crypto platform Descrypto Holdings, formerly known as W Technologies, hired Creenagh Flynn as its chief marketing officer.



Flynn was most recently a creative director for advisory and international relations firm MidAtlantic Capital Management and the CEO of business development solutions business Crave Genius, according to her LinkedIn page.&nbsp;



Bitcoin miner TeraWulf appointed Michael Bucella and Kerri Langlais to its board of directors as the company is focused on building a 100% zero-carbon energy grid.



Bucella is a partner and the global head of strategic partnerships and business development at crypto investment firm BlockTower Capital. He previously spent nearly a decade with Goldman Sachs running its multi-asset sales and trading business in Canada.



Langlais is TeraWulf’s chief strategy officer and is responsible for overall corporate strategy, business development, strategic partnerships and growth initiatives.



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Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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