Bitcoin miner facing financial woes as Limestone lawsuit settlement still incomplete

LIMESTONE, Tenn. (WJHL) — It was June 9 when Bitcoin miner GRIID’s CEO Trey Kelly personally spoke to Washington County residents angered about a noisy Bitcoin mine in Limestone. That night, after grilling Kelly and extracting multiple concessions, county commissioners agreed to terms settling their lawsuit against GRIID subsidiary Red Dog Technology and local utility BrightRidge.

News Channel 11 has learned that was also the date GRIID received its first letter from its creditor, Blockchain Access UK Limited, claiming GRIID had defaulted on its credit agreement with Blockchain.

 “If GRIID is unable to resolve its dispute with Blockchain or secure additional new financing, it will be likely unable to repay the amounts due and payable under the credit agreement, which would likely render it insolvent and likely result in a bankruptcy filing…” reads a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from a company that has been set to take GRIID public since last November.

Referring to that June 9 negotiation, Tim Hylton, who lives just uphill from the mine, told News Channel 11 Thursday, “it was a done deal as far as I was concerned.”

Three months have passed since the sides negotiated an agreement that even county commissioners thought was final pending the BrightRidge board’s assent, which came June 10. In it, GRIID would purchase 5 acres at the Washington County Industrial Park, build a new (and Kelly said quieter) mine there, and depart Limestone for good no later than the end of 2024 but likely much sooner.

The company would also pay Washington County $500 a day retroactive to September, 2021 — which was when the county ordered BrightRidge to shut the mine down due to an alleged zoning violation — and up until the mine closed in Limestone.

Commissioners soon learned a “final final” version needed to be completed by attorneys for both sides in the suit, which alleged that the mine violated the county’s A-3 zoning ordinance and that it opened without getting a permit. County Attorney Allyson Wilkinson has told commissioners she provided GRIID representatives details on what the county needs from them, including a specific site at the industrial park, by late June.

Several commissioners told News Channel 11 that as of mid-September, they hadn’t received anything to run back through a committee and on to the full commission for an up or down vote.

Meanwhile, the noisy fans cooling high-powered, energy hungry computers at Red Dog’s Limestone mine continue their dull roar, which came in at 50 decibels on Hylton’s decibel meter this week. Those computers perform highly complex equations in an effort to “unearth” the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin, and to verify Bitcoin transactions. They use massive amounts of power, in this case sold by BrightRidge, which leases GRIID the property next to its Bailey Bridge Road substation.

“Not much we can do,” Hylton said Thursday, standing at the edge of his property with bright purple ironweed flowers blooming just behind him and the mine site, surrounded by sound-reducing fencing but still emitting a constant and very noticeable noise, a couple hundred yards further in the background.

“We’re just waiting on them to get settled and hoping the sound will go away and our lives become what they were before it got here.”

The Hyltons can always hear the mine on the back side of their home, which sits atop a heavily wooded ridge.

“We…