4190万美元买“离场”？Block的矿机大客户为何宁愿亏钱也要逃

Original Author: Protos

Original Compilation: Chopper, Foresight News

Since 2024, Core Scientific has paid at least $67.9 million to Jack Dorsey's Block, Inc., for purchasing Bitcoin mining chips. Subsequently, the company incurred a $41.9 million loss from terminating the remaining mining machine procurement contracts.

The data center operator made payments of $10 million to Block in July 2024, $21.3 million in January 2025, and a final payment of $36.6 million in January 2026.

However, in its latest quarterly report released today, Core Scientific stated that it "has entered into a termination and settlement agreement with Block and its subsidiary Proto Global LLC, releasing existing contracts and all future obligations for miner deliveries, resulting in a $41.9 million loss."

Despite absorbing 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 had announced a procurement framework agreement in July 2024, planning to deliver approximately 15 EH/s of its self-developed 3-nanometer mining chips. Core Scientific was the first customer for Proto's chips and the only major buyer publicly disclosed 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 $64.8 million still due. In January 2026, after partial delivery of mining machines, the company paid an additional $36.6 million. Immediately following that, Core Scientific recorded a $41.9 million loss, canceling all remaining orders.

Core Scientific's announcement did not provide a detailed breakdown of this expense, but the outcome was clear: the company was willing to accept a massive loss to stop purchasing the Bitcoin miners launched by Dorsey.

The day before the announcement, Core Scientific signed a 15-year lease agreement for a total of 529 megawatts of data center space, with the vast majority being leased directly to AMD. The company stated that this lease agreement, unrelated to Block, is expected to generate over $14 billion in contract revenue.

Now, leasing data center space 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.

A shareholder letter for the quarter 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 resulted in a major customer willingly losing $41.9 million just to escape the procurement contract.

During the Q2 2025 earnings call, Dorsey commented on the mining business, saying: "We will gain a large number of satisfied customers, expand our market share, and capture a significant portion of the market."

A week after this conference call, Block officially launched the Proto miner at Core Scientific's campus in Dalton, Georgia. Less than a year later, this core customer terminated the contract, incurring a loss, and canceled all remaining orders.

Jack Dorsey Faces a Series of Business Setbacks

The difficulties faced by Block's mining machine business are just one part of a string of failed projects for Jack Dorsey. Over the past five years, Block's stock price has fallen by 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 as a "major misstep." Subsequently, Block recorded a $132.3 million goodwill impairment on its Tidal investment, essentially acknowledging a massive loss on the acquisition.

In July 2025, Dorsey launched the open-source communication software, Bitchat. Within just a few days of its launch, he added a risk warning in the code repository: the software has not undergone an external security audit, may contain vulnerabilities, and may not achieve its advertised security goals.

In January 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Block to pay a $55 million penalty, plus up to an additional $120 million in redress, to resolve issues related to the mishandling of Cash App fraud complaints. 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 employees to fewer than 6,000, meaning more than 4,000 employees would face termination or negotiated severance.

Block is scheduled to release its Q2 2026 earnings report after the US market closes on August 5th, and has not yet responded to Core Scientific's contract termination.