Riot Frees $494 Million in Bitcoin After Coinbase Loan Repayment
Riot paid off the Coinbase debt without a penalty and got 5,821 BTC back, while the company is also shifting capital into AI data centers in Texas.
Key Takeaways
- Riot Platforms paid off a $200 million Coinbase loan and freed up 5,821 bitcoin from collateral.
- At a price of about $84,800, the released bitcoin were worth roughly $494 million in total.
- Riot is also investing heavily in AI data centers in Texas and had already sold a large part of its bitcoin holdings earlier.
Riot Platforms has paid off a $200 million (€175 million) Coinbase loan, freeing up 5,821 bitcoin that had been locked up as collateral. At a price of about $84,800 (€74,400), those coins are worth about $494 million (€433 million) combined. The company now holds the coins without restrictions, while it is also investing heavily in AI data centers in Texas.
Loan and Collateral
In practice, the loan worked like a pledge arrangement. Riot posted bitcoin, USDC, and cash with Coinbase Custody as security. According to an 8-K filed Friday, the company paid off the debt and interest on September 21. Coinbase gave up its claim on the collateral that same day, and Riot paid no penalty for early repayment.
The released bitcoin made up a little more than half of the 11,380 BTC Riot held on June 30. The filing does not say exactly how the company financed the repayment. The document also does not say what Riot plans to do with the freed-up coins.
More Selling Than Production
The repayment comes after a period in which Riot had already sold a lot of bitcoin. In the first quarter, the company sold 3,778 BTC for $289.5 million (€254 million), while mining 1,473 BTC. In the second quarter, its holdings fell from 15,680 to 11,380 coins, despite producing 1,587 BTC. That happened alongside funding for the AI expansion.
That shift is bigger than just one loan. Riot is increasingly trying to position itself as a data center operator alongside being a bitcoin miner. In August, the company signed a 20-year lease for 191 megawatts of computing power at its campus in Rockdale, Texas. The tenant is described only as a leading frontier AI lab. Morgan Stanley also provided a $573 million (€502 million) bridge loan for the first construction phase, while a longer-term credit structure is still being finalized.
Why This Matters for Investors
For European crypto followers, the key point is that Riot is showing how miners can use their bitcoin holdings as a source of financing. That makes the balance sheets of these companies more sensitive to Bitcoin price swings, but it also gives them room to free up capital without issuing new shares right away. The next quarterly update should show whether the released bitcoin stayed on the balance sheet.
On the stock market, RIOT closed at $23 on Friday, down 2% on the day. Over five days, the stock lost about 3%, but since the start of the year it is still up about 82%.
