The idea
Industrial mining is a business of megawatts and site deals, which puts it out of reach of anyone who wants to run a machine or two. Compass sells the middle: it sources the hardware, ships it, and places it in a hosting facility it has contracted with, so the customer owns a specific machine without ever seeing it. That model puts a broker between the owner and the rack, and the events of 2022 are what that arrangement looks like when the rack stops cooperating.
The Form D it filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in February 2021 names the issuer as Compass Mining, Inc., a Delaware corporation with a year of incorporation of 2019 and two previous names, HASHR8 Inc. and H4SHr8 Inc. The same filing lists Whitney Gibbs, who signed as chief executive officer, alongside Paul Gosker and Thomas Heller as executive officers and directors.
2022
On 28 June 2022 the company announced that its board had accepted the resignations of chief executive Whit Gibbs and chief finance officer Jodie Fisher, appointing Gosker and Heller as interim co-chief executives. Its own statement that day said there had "been multiple setbacks and disappointments". A week later it cut 15% of staff.
The dispute behind that was with a Maine hosting provider, Dynamics Mining. Compass filed suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery on 21 June 2022, and announced on 8 July that it had recovered customer machines "from a former partner hosting facility in Maine that had been holding the equipment against Compass's instructions", following a court order of 5 July. On 30 December 2022 Compass announced a default judgment against Dynamics for $1,474,400, and said in the same post that Dynamics' lawyers had withdrawn for non-payment and that "It is not clear whether Compass will be able to collect." The Chancery docket itself is not freely accessible, so that judgment rests on the company's own account.
Compass was also sued by its customers. Veribi, LLC filed in the Central District of California on 1 July 2022, and Kuyawa v. Compass Mining, Inc. was filed in the Northern District of California on 11 July 2022, pleading breach of contract and conversion. Both were terminated without any published finding against the company. No court or regulator has made a finding of fraud here, and none is claimed. Listing here is not endorsement.