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.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



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Bitcoin mining

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

Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_6149f1e3db56a" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>While some retail miners prefer a hands-off approach through Compass&#8217; hosting services, demand for do-it-yourself offering is on the rise</li>
 <li>Compass raised $1.7 million in seed funding in March with participation from Galaxy Digital, CoinFund and CoinShares</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Compass Mining has launched a service for consumers to purchase bitcoin mining equipment for their home as an alternative to having to pay remote hosting facility fees to mine $BTC.



Founded in 2020, Compass Mining is a bitcoin-first company seeking to support the decentralized growth of hashrate, which is vital for ensuring network security. The company helps customers buy, ship and install mining hardware and arranges for it to be hosted at mining facilities with favorable power rates.



Compass raised $1.7 million in seed funding in March with participation from Galaxy Digital, CoinFund and CoinShares.



The company’s latest service delivers application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, mining machines to customers’ doors. Compass offers Bitmain’s Antminer S19 and MicroBT’s Whatsminer M30S, and orders ship within two weeks.



Machines available on Compass’s website range in cost from $8,200 to $10,400. The new offering comes at a time when hashrate has been recovering following a steep drop caused by <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bit-digital-cashes-in-on-chinese-mining-exodus/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">an abrupt exodus</a> of mining operations from China to the rest of the world, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bitcoin-mining-shifts-to-n-america-amid-fee-compression/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">including North America</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1014" height="343" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png" alt="Bitcoin network hashrate" class="wp-image-8323" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png?w=1014 1014w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-21-at-17.46.47.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1014px) 100vw, 1014px" /><figcaption>Unit:  Hashes per second; Source: <a href="https://bitcoinvisuals.com/chain-hash-rate" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BitcoinVisuals</a></figcaption></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Can retail users compete?</h3>



“While industrial mining operations and retail miners primarily use Compass to help them secure space in one of our 23 hosting facilities around the world, we have found that there is significant interest from our customer base to set up operations in their own home,” Compass Mining CEO Whitney Gibbs said in a statement. 



Since ASIC mining machines were introduced in 2012, large corporations with hundreds of thousands of machines have dominated the market, the firm noted.



A surge in at-home mining interest occurred in hand with this year&#8217;s surge in general demand for cryptocurrency mining products and services from retail clients, a spokesperson told Blockworks, adding that mining profitability is near record levels. That comes despite the fact that ASIC lifecycle is typically just 2-4 years, before they either wear out or require upgrades due to improvements in mining technology.



Compass hosts thousands of machines at its two dozen or so mining farms around the world with power costs that are generally much cheaper than North American residential power costs, the representative added. At-home miners typically pay higher electricity rates than miners hosting through Compass, and profitability calculators are available online for them to model their prospective revenue, costs and profit.



Unlike some other competitors, Compass doesn&#8217;t manufacture its own mining hardware. <a href="https://coinmine.com/pages/faq" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinmine</a>, for example, offers a crypto device that can be set up from any iOS or Android device, and can run anywhere with a wifi connection. The machine can mine cryptocurrencies and then store them in a user’s in-app digital wallet.



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