BitFuFu may walk away from its planned acquisition of an 80-megawatt Bitcoin mining site in Ethiopia, after the site operator's payment dispute with its power supplier put $4.1 million already paid by the Singapore-based miner at risk.

The Nasdaq-listed company (FUFU) disclosed the situation in a Form 6-K filed October 13, saying it now sees "a material risk" that the transaction will not close on current terms—or at all.

Acquisition has yet to close

Through its subsidiary Finfront Holding Company, BitFuFu agreed on October 22, 2024 to acquire a majority stake in the Ethiopian company that operates the mining site. The deal never closed, with a number of conditions in the agreement remaining unfulfilled.

BitFuFu said it is reviewing its "contractual rights and available remedies." Its options include terminating the agreement, pursuing arbitration against the sellers, clawing back payments and removing its hardware.

The miner has so far paid the sellers $4.1 million in cash and has installed roughly 13,700 Bitmain Antminer S19 machines at the facility. Those machines produce about 1.57 exahashes per second and carried a net book value of $1.74 million as of September 30. For scale, the site's 80 megawatts amounts to roughly a quarter of the 324 megawatts of power capacity BitFuFu reported for September.

Power supplier issued 10-day ultimatum

BitFuFu is not a party to the contract at the center of the conflict. The target company is, and it has not paid the disputed amounts to its Ethiopian power supplier. That leaves BitFuFu's cash and installed hardware exposed to a payment dispute in which it holds no contractual role.

The supplier acted on September , warning the target that it would seize collateralized equipment and assets if payment was not made within 10 days. As of the filing date, the money had not been paid, according to BitFuFu. That put the ultimatum's 10-day deadline in early October, before the filing, leaving the threatened seizure of collateralized equipment and assets as the immediate development to watch.

Chairman and CEO Leo Lu sought to contain the fallout, describing the Ethiopian investment as "a limited portion of our overall asset base." He noted that the facility has already been affected by local power curtailment, with limited further impact expected on Bitcoin output.

"We believe this event's incremental impact on the Company will be minimal," Lu said.

September output slipped 4%

In its monthly production update, BitFuFu reported September mining output of 167 BTC, down 4% from 174 BTC in August, with daily production holding steady at 5.6 BTC.

Self-mining output rose from 88 BTC to 98 BTC, while cloud mining output fell about 20%, to 69 BTC from 86 BTC. Managed hashrate declined to 19.4 exahashes per second from 20.6, and power capacity fell to 324 megawatts from 344. The company's Bitcoin holdings climbed by 15 coins to 1,388 BTC.

Among peers, CleanSpark's production fell about 11% to 529 BTC, while Canaan was flat at 44 BTC. CleanSpark has also dropped monthly mining updates in favor of quarterly reporting as it shifts focus to its data center business.

FUFU closed at $1.31 on Thursday, compared with $2.64 at the end of 2025—less than half that level. BitFuFu reported $475.8 million in revenue for 2025, up 2.7%, alongside a net loss of $57.4 million—a result dragged down by a $32.8 million fair-value loss on its Bitcoin holdings. Cloud mining, in which customers rent managed hashrate, accounted for 73.7% of revenue.