Bitcoin miner Hut 8 Mining Corporation, based in Canada, has escalated its longstanding dispute with the company that supplies power to one of its mining facilities by suing the company in a Canadian court.
On January 26, Hut 8 announced that it has filed a Statement of Claim against Validus Power, an energy provider for a Hut 8 mining site in North Bay, Ontario, in the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario.
As a result of what Hut 8 claims is Validus’s failure to “meet its contractual responsibilities” under the power purchase agreement, the companies have been engaged in a protracted legal dispute since early November.
Hut 8 is requesting “monetary damages incurred as a result of the disagreement” and the implementation of key clauses from the contract the two businesses signed in its latest lawsuit.
Hut 8 and Validus began collaborating in the latter half of 2021, with Validus first supplying North Bay with 35 megawatts (MW), rising to about 100 MW by the year’s end.
On November 9, Hut 8 sent Validus a notice of default stating that the company had failed to meet milestones by the specified dates in the power purchase agreement and that Validus had requested that Hut 8 pay for energy at a higher cost than was specified in the contract.
Later that month, Hut 8 reported that Validus had stopped supplying energy to its North Bay facility. Hut 8 disputes Validus’ accusation that it failed to pay for its power charges in a response to Validus’ default notice.
The site’s operations are still halted as of this writing. Hut 8 stated that it is looking into different options, such as “organic and inorganic growth potential,” to lessen the effects of the disagreement.
According to a December investor presentation, the North Bay site had 8,800 cryptocurrency mining rigs and a hash rate capacity of 0.84 exahashes per second (EH/s) when it was taken offline, making up more than one-fourth of its overall production capacity.
