4190万美元买“离场”？Block的矿机大客户为何宁愿亏钱也要逃
- 核心观点：比特币矿商Core Scientific在向Jack Dorsey旗下Block公司支付至少6790万美元矿机采购款后，宁愿承担4190万美元损失也要终止剩余订单，此举反映出Block的矿机业务遇冷及公司战略向AI算力租赁转型。
- 关键要素：
- Core Scientific已向Block支付总计6790万美元采购比特币挖矿芯片，但为解除剩余合约计提了4190万美元损失。
- 解约前，Core Scientific签署了为期15年、总规模529兆瓦的机房租赁协议，主要租给AMD，预计带来超140亿美元收入，远优于矿机采购。
- Block的比特币挖矿业务此前被视为具备“良好的产品市场契合度”和“充足订单需求”，但Core Scientific作为其首位且唯一公开的大型客户选择违约。
- Jack Dorsey领导下的Block近期遭遇多重挫折，包括Tidal投资减值、被罚超2.5亿美元、及计划裁员至6000人以内。
- Block股价在过去五年累计下跌68%，Core Scientific解约事件进一步凸显其矿机业务面临的困境。
Original Author: Protos
Original Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News
Since 2024, Core Scientific has paid at least $67.9 million to Jack Dorsey's Block, Inc. to purchase bitcoin mining chips. Subsequently, the company incurred a loss of $41.9 million from terminating the remaining miner procurement contracts.
The data center operator paid Block $10 million in July 2024, $21.3 million in January 2025, and made a final payment of $36.6 million in January 2026.
However, the company's latest quarterly report released today shows: Core Scientific "has entered into a termination and settlement agreement with Block and its subsidiary Proto Global LLC, releasing the existing contracts and all related future miner delivery obligations, resulting in a $41.9 million loss."
Despite bearing this substantial loss, Core Scientific decided to terminate its procurement obligations with Block's mining hardware division, Proto, to advance its own "strategic transformation."
Block announced a procurement framework agreement in July 2024, planning to deliver self-developed 3-nanometer mining chips with a hashrate of approximately 15 EH/s. Core Scientific was Proto's first customer and the only major purchaser publicly named by Block.
Block stock price trend
Jack Dorsey's Bitcoin Mining Business
As of January 2025, Core Scientific had paid $31.3 million in deposits and prepayments, with an estimated further $64.8 million owed at that time. In January 2026, after some miners were delivered, the company paid another $36.6 million. Immediately following, Core Scientific booked a $41.9 million loss and cancelled all remaining orders.
Core Scientific's announcement did not detail the specific breakdown of these costs, but the outcome is clear: the company was willing to endure a massive loss to stop purchasing the bitcoin miners launched by Dorsey.
The day before the announcement, Core Scientific signed a 15-year, 529 MW data center lease agreement, with the vast majority of the data centers leased directly to AMD. The company stated that this lease contract, unrelated to Block, is expected to generate over $14 billion in contract revenue.
Now, renting data centers to AMD is far more profitable than using Dorsey's miners to mine bitcoin.
Protos previously reported that Block shut down its internally incubated bitcoin mining project and the TBD division for the Web5 identity project in November 2024.
The quarterly shareholder letter stated: "We will scale back our investment in the music streaming platform Tidal and shut down the TBD division. This frees up more capital for our bitcoin mining business. This business has good product-market fit, sufficient order demand, while we continue to develop the bitcoin self-custody wallet Bitkey."
The so-called "sufficient order demand" ultimately led one major customer to incur a $41.9 million loss just to escape the procurement contract.
During the Q2 2025 earnings call, Dorsey commented on the mining business: "We are going to have a bunch of happy customers, expand the market, and take a lot of market share."
One week after that call ended, Block officially launched the Proto miner at Core Scientific's facility in Dalton, Georgia. Less than a year later, this core customer terminated the contract at a loss, cancelling all remaining orders.
Jack Dorsey Faces Consecutive Business Setbacks
The cooling of Block's miner business is just one element in a string of failed projects for Jack Dorsey. Over the past five years, Block's stock price has fallen by a cumulative 68%.
In 2021, Block acquired Jay-Z's music platform Tidal for $237.3 million (adjusted). Reuters reported that the acquisition was widely viewed by the market at the time as a "major misstep." Subsequently, Block booked a $132.3 million goodwill impairment on its Tidal investment, effectively admitting a massive loss on the acquisition.
In July 2025, Dorsey launched the open-source communication software Bitchat. Just days after its launch, he added a risk warning to the code repository: the software has not undergone an external security audit, may contain vulnerabilities, and may not achieve the security goals it promotes.
In January 2025, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Block to pay a $55 million fine and up to an additional $120 million in restitution to resolve issues related to mishandling fraud complaints on Cash App. The day before the penalty was issued, state financial regulators had just fined Block $80 million.
In February 2026, Block disclosed to shareholders its plan for significant layoffs, reducing its workforce from over 10,000 to less than 6,000, leaving more than 4,000 employees facing resignation or negotiated severance.
Block is scheduled to report its Q2 2026 earnings after the U.S. market closes on August 5, and has not yet responded to Core Scientific's contract termination.
