Bitmain has accused Orb Energy Co. of gross mismanagement weeks after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bankruptcy filing came after Bitmain secured injunctions in a Texas state court.
Bitmain wants the U.S. bankruptcy court to allow it to reclaim thousands of Bitcoin miners from Orb Energy, citing various reasons ranging from the misappropriation of digital assets and obstructing access to equipment to damaging thousands of Bitcoin mining machines worth millions of dollars.
Bitmain motions to reclaim BTC miners
In an emergency motion filed on August 27 in the Southern District of Texas, Bitmain argued that the automatic stay triggered by Orb Energy’s Chapter 11 petition should not cover the 2,700 Antminer servers housed at Orb’s Van Vleck facility.
According to the Chinese miner manufacturer, the machines, which are valued at more than $5.5 million, remain its property under a Hosting Sale Agreement and should not be included as part of Orb’s bankruptcy estate.
The dispute draws attention to Bitmain’s direct involvement in proprietary mining capacity on American soil–something the company has always been secretive about.
According to Bitmain, Orb started diverting mining rewards on December 4, 2024, redirecting payouts from its machines to wallets controlled by Orb’s CEO, a scheme that rerouted Bitcoin worth about $10 million at current market prices.
The company also alleged that Orb CEO Jamieson Zaniewski sold Bitcoin belonging to Bitmain in the middle of this year, just ahead of critical state court hearings, while concealing wallet addresses and transaction records to make the trail harder to track.
Despite state court injunctions, Bitmain claims Orb restricted its staff from the site with physical barriers, refused to install monitoring software, and even put up signage implying threats of deadly force, as witnesses testified there were real firearms present on site, according to the filing.
The motion also accuses Orb of installing unauthorized firmware that rendered safety protocols useless and caused “irreparable damage” to hundreds of units, and of dissipating Bitcoin proceeds via insider loans.
According to Bitmain, the hosting agreement was formally terminated in July 2025 after Orb allegedly ignored repeated notices of breach. Upon termination of the contract, it expected the return of the miners; however, Orb had listed the equipment in its bankruptcy schedules, hence the legal action.
Bitmain and its affiliate Cango may be subject to federal review
Bitmain’s legal action against Orb is happening days after news revealed Representative Zachary Nunn of Iowa, a member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, had sent a September 2 letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent requesting that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) look into Bitmain and Cango over their growing presence in the American market.
Nunn argued in his letter that both companies “appear to be scaling operations in the U.S. through complex ownership structures and financing arrangements that may not be fully transparent to regulators or the public,” Bloomberg reported, citing the letter.
Bitmain has denied reports that it has plans to acquire Cango, and both companies claim they comply with U.S. laws and have no affiliations with the Chinese government.
Cango used to be a Chinese auto services platform listed in the U.S., but it recently pivoted into Bitcoin mining and subsequently emerged as one of the industry’s top five players.
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