The mining enterprise owned by the Chinese-controlled MineOne company, which was ordered to close by US President Joe Biden, turned out to be at the stage of sale of CleanSpark. This is reported by CoinDesk.
On May 13, the head of state, on the recommendation of the Interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Investment of the United States (CFIUS), banned the firm from owning real estate for reasons of national security.
The facility is located about a mile from Warren Air Force Base, the home of Minuteman III strategic nuclear missiles in Wyoming. The department considered that the proximity and use of specific foreign-made equipment for mining "facilitate surveillance and espionage."
On May 9, the American public mining company CleanSpark announced the purchase of existing bitcoin mining facilities in Wyoming with a capacity of 75 MW for 18.75 million.
Giddy up! $CLSK has entered into definitive agreements to acquire 75 MW of #bitcoin mining sites in Wyoming for $18.75 million, expecting to add over 4 EH/s in #hashrate once fully operational.🤠🐎
This is now the third state in our portfolio of owned-and-operated bitcoin mining… pic.twitter.com/HGn5NnQ2BC
CleanSpark planned to close the deal within 45 days. Upon its completion, the company expected to increase the hashrate to 7 EH/s by adding another 55 MW.
As it turned out, it was about the MineOne data center. According to a CleanSpark representative, Biden's order caused "some concern" regarding the completion of the transaction.
"The decree and the participation of CFIUS, which we did not know about before signing the deal, added surprise to the closing process, but we are dealing with these events to complete it," he added.
CleanSpark board member Tom Wood noted that as a former senior Naval officer, he is "aware of the potential risks of possible encroachments on important defense infrastructure." According to him, he is familiar with CFIUS procedures and considers them "impartial and not arbitrary."
"The presence of a CPC-owned data center next to an object such as Warren, where part of the national intercontinental ballistic missile forces is located, is a legitimate cause for concern, which is noted in the presidential decree," he stressed.
Recall that in February, CleanSpark bought for $19.8 million three operating enterprises for the extraction of the first cryptocurrency in Mississippi with a combined hashrate of 2.4 EH/s.