Bitcoin Mining Hosting Agreements in Texas

By Hank FasthoffSeptember 19, 2026

Your business ships 500 mining machines to a Texas facility. Three months later, the host shuts them down during expensive electricity hours, continues charging a monthly minimum, and refuses to release the equipment until you pay a disputed invoice. Your purchase records establish ownership, but the hosting agreement governs the host's operating discretion, payment demands, and promised cooperation with removal.

A mining hosting agreement combines custody of valuable equipment with power supply, maintenance, and payment arrangements. Before delivery, you should assess how those obligations interact when mining becomes uneconomic, the facility loses power, or either party wants to end the relationship. The price per kilowatt hour is only one part of that assessment.

Identify the Equipment, the Host, and the Facility

The contracting company may differ from the landowner, power customer, maintenance provider, and business whose name appears on the website. You should identify which entity possesses the machines, controls access to the site, and owes each contractual obligation. Where performance depends on another company, the documents can address its consent, direct obligations, or a guaranty from a financially responsible affiliate.

An equipment schedule can identify each machine by model and serial number, with records of its condition at delivery and any replacement parts. The agreement can acknowledge your ownership, define the host's permitted use, and restrict relocation or substitution without consent. Inspection rights and updated inventory records help establish which machines are yours if a lender, landlord, or replacement operator challenges your right to collect them.

The same review extends to the facility's readiness. For a site awaiting power or construction, the parties can tie deposits and recurring charges to documented milestones, with a final date for service to begin and stated refund rights if it does not. A projected energization date supplies less protection than an obligation with a defined consequence for delay.

Define the Full Cost of Power and Hosting

A quoted electricity rate can coexist with demand charges, transmission costs, cooling charges, repair bills, and minimum payments. You should establish which charges are included, how additional amounts are calculated, and what records support them. Where the host passes through a supplier's costs, the agreement can specify permitted markups and access to the relevant invoices and meter data.

Billing also depends on where consumption is measured. Measurements at the machine, rack, or facility can produce different allocations of cooling demand and electrical losses, so the pricing schedule should correspond to the measurement method. The parties can then address estimated bills, corrections, disputed readings, and whether minimum charges continue during maintenance, curtailment, or a failure to provide service.

A change in electricity costs can make an otherwise functioning arrangement unaffordable. A price adjustment provision can identify the triggering event, calculation, notice period, and any customer right to terminate. The exit terms should address the cost and timing of removal if your business exercises that right.

Allocate Curtailment Costs and Payments

Curtailment means reducing or stopping electricity consumption. A host may shut down equipment in response to an emergency instruction, participation in a grid program, or its assessment that reducing consumption is more profitable than mining. Those events can have different consequences for your fees and any payments or credits the host receives.

The June 2025 hosting agreement between Sentinum and Montana OP, for a facility in Hardin, Montana, illustrates the distinction. It separately addresses grid relief curtailment and economic curtailment, with the latter including a 50% allocation to each party of specified net profits from energy sales, credited against customer charges. That allocation depends on the contract's definitions and deductions; it is not a statutory entitlement for mining customers.

Texas law also affects the operating assumptions. Senate Bill 6 added Utilities Code § 39.170(a), directing the Public Utility Commission to require ERCOT to ensure that utilities develop curtailment protocols for specified transmission voltage customers interconnected after December 31, 2025, subject to critical load exceptions. That subsection contains no 75 megawatt minimum. Section 39.170(b) separately directs development of a service to procure demand reductions from customers with demand of at least 75 megawatts.

The statutory duties, implementing rules, utility arrangements, and site conditions call for assessment together. Your hosting agreement can allocate the resulting costs and benefits by stating who may authorize each type of shutdown, what notice and records you receive, and which charges continue. Any sharing formula should identify eligible payments, credits, and deductions, with a method for checking the host's calculations.

Measure Uptime Against the Service You Are Buying

A machine can have electricity and internet access while failing to submit useful mining calculations to a pool. A pool combines participants' computing effort and distributes compensation under its payment rules. You should distinguish a promise of power availability from a promise about equipment operation, connectivity, or hashrate, which measures the rate of mining calculations.

An uptime provision can define the measurement period, monitoring source, excluded events, and treatment of individual machine failures. Excluding every maintenance period, power interruption, and discretionary curtailment can substantially reduce the protection a headline percentage appears to offer. Technical personnel can assess the measurement method while counsel addresses the corresponding obligation and remedy.

Service credits also depend on claim procedures and exclusions. The contract can specify reporting deadlines, repair response times, and a termination right after repeated or prolonged failures. If credits are the exclusive remedy, that restriction should be considered alongside any exclusion of lost mining revenue and the overall liability cap.

Control Pool Accounts and Mining Proceeds

Physical possession of the machines and authority over their proceeds are separate questions. Your host may configure the equipment, administer the pool account, deduct charges, or instruct the pool where to send payments. You should establish who can change those instructions and what approval is necessary before a payout destination changes.

Braiins Pool's account documentation describes access profiles with different permissions. Its mining setup instructions separately address the payout address and payout rule. Those distinctions illustrate why an agreement referring only to “account access” leaves unanswered which person can view records, change settings, or redirect proceeds.

In the Sentinum agreement, initial rewards fund operating expenses, the setup fee, and an $800,000 deposit through specified wallets. Subsequent allocations include an operating expense wallet whose bitcoin receipts are converted to dollars daily.

The payment provisions can specify pool selection, permitted deductions, payout frequency, and the records available to reconcile receipts. Where the host receives bitcoin before forwarding your share, the documents should address its authority to retain or sell those funds, the conversion method, and treatment of disputed fees. A change in pool or payout configuration can then be evaluated against a stated contractual procedure.

Address Liens Before a Payment Dispute

Ownership of a machine can coexist with another party's right to retain it. Under Texas Property Code § 70.001(a), a worker who repairs an article by labor may retain possession until the agreed repair charge is paid, or the reasonable and usual compensation if the contract specifies no amount. That repair lien provision does not establish a blanket right to retain every hosted machine for every unpaid hosting charge.

A host may also request a contractual security interest in equipment or proceeds. Texas Business and Commerce Code § 9.203 governs attachment and enforceability, including requirements concerning value, the debtor's rights in the collateral, and the applicable agreement or possession conditions. Section 9.333 separately provides priority for qualifying possessory liens over security interests unless the statute establishing the lien provides otherwise.

You should review the proposed collateral, secured obligations, and default remedies against any existing equipment financing. A negotiated dispute procedure can address payment of undisputed charges, security for contested amounts, and release of unaffected equipment, subject to applicable rights and required consents. If a landlord or lender can obstruct access, a separate acknowledgment or access agreement may be necessary; the host's promise alone does not bind that party.

Match Insurance and Liability to the Possible Loss

A fire can destroy machines, a handling error can damage them, and an unauthorized payout change can divert bitcoin. Each event presents a different coverage question. You should have the relevant policies and endorsements assessed for customer equipment, locations, transit, valuation, deductibles, exclusions, and the identity of the person entitled to payment.

The Texas Department of Insurance explains that a certificate of insurance cannot alter, amend, or extend policy coverage, consistent with Insurance Code § 1811.055. A certificate listing the host's insurance therefore does not establish that your machines or lost proceeds are covered on the terms you expect. Those terms belong in the policy and applicable endorsements.

The hosting agreement also determines the liability the parties have agreed to assume, subject to applicable law. A cap based on a few months of hosting fees may be far below the equipment value. You should assess how the cap and damages exclusions apply to equipment loss, unauthorized use, diverted proceeds, and failure to return property, along with any negotiated exceptions.

Plan for the Host's Financial Failure

A host's bankruptcy raises questions about ownership, possession, and the procedure for obtaining equipment. Under 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1), the estate includes the debtor's legal or equitable interests in property at the commencement of the case. Accurate ownership and inventory records help identify your property and the extent of any interest the host holds.

The automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(3) restricts acts to obtain possession of property of or from the estate or to exercise control over estate property. An equipment owner may need a court determination or relief from the stay before collection, depending on the host's interests and the circumstances. You should obtain bankruptcy advice before attempting removal after a filing.

An automatic termination clause tied to bankruptcy also has statutory limits. In Argonaut Insurance Co. v. Falcon V, L.L.C., the Fifth Circuit explained that an executory contract involves performance due on both sides at the bankruptcy filing, with either party's failure to complete performance constituting a material breach excusing the other's performance. Section 365(e) restricts termination or modification of covered executory contracts solely because of specified insolvency or bankruptcy conditions, subject to statutory exceptions. A clause promising immediate termination and collection cannot establish that those steps will be permitted.

Deposits, prepaid fees, and unpaid proceeds present additional exposure. The agreement can address permitted use of those funds, accounting, and repayment, but the company's ability to repay depends on its finances and the rights of competing claimants. Limiting the amount advanced and monitoring performance can reduce the amount at risk before a filing.

Specify How the Equipment Leaves

Termination and physical removal are separate stages. You should establish when the host must disconnect and pack the machines, who arranges transport, what charges apply, and when responsibility for loss transfers. The procedure can also cover final meter readings, unpaid pool balances, removal of account permissions, and return of unused deposits.

Sentinum's removal clause requires preparation within 30 days of a written request after termination and payment of undisputed amounts. The customer has 30 days after the pickup notice to collect equipment. Storage charges may begin then, and the clause states that title transfers to the host if equipment is not removed within another 30 days. Enforceability depends on applicable law and the circumstances.

For your arrangement, the removal schedule should account for the number of machines, packing requirements, carrier availability, and access to the premises. The parties can address partial releases and alternative security for disputed amounts before a disagreement prevents the entire fleet from leaving. Governing law, forum, and any arbitration clause also affect how a request for urgent relief would proceed.

Before signing, you should evaluate the agreement against delayed energization, sustained downtime, a disputed invoice, and termination. The documents should state what happens to your charges, equipment, and proceeds in each event. This review addresses commercial hosting terms; securities classification, electricity regulation, and technical suitability call for separate assessments.