Bitcoin miner sues Detroit landlord over electrical issues Complaint says capacity materially changed; building owner says lease agreement breached

A dispute over electrical capacity has put a Bitcoin mining company and its Detroit landlord at odds in a federal lawsuit led last Monday.

In the complaint, Syosset, N.Y.based Cheetah Miner USA Inc. says tensions developed between it and its landlord, 19200 Glendale LLC, toward the end of 2022 and it was told the building owner “sought to begin and/or expand its own operations at the building and needed the electrical capacity available to” Cheetah.

Bitcoin mining, the complaint says, “requires signi cant electrical capacity, as well as sophisticated hardware and software.” Cheetah Miner has a contract with DTE Energy Co. that would have given it “sucient capacity to engage in Bitcoin mining,” the complaint says.

However, after the landlord “repeatedly threatened eviction,” the two sides discussed simply terminating the lease.

Cheetah Miner provided a lease termination on Jan. 23, the complaint says. However, the complaint says the landlord didn’t sign the lease termination, so it was therefore nalized and Cheetah Miner is still a tenant. Yet 19200 Glendale “materially changed the electrical capacity for (Cheetah Miner) use” as of Feb. 7, the complaint says.

As a result of not having electricity, Cheetah Miner says it is hasn’t been able to mine Bitcoin since that day, resulting in lost pro t totaling more than $75,000.

“My client signed a fully drafted out lease termination agreement,” said Jonathan Frank, an attorney with Bloom eld Hills-based Frank & Frank

Law who is representing Cheetah Miner. “As of the end of January, early February, my client negotiated to be bought out but the landlord wouldn’t sign it, so we are between a rock and a hard place. ey turned the power o , and we asked him a couple weeks later that, if you’re not going to sign (the lease termination agreement), at least turn the power back on.”

An attorney for the landlord said there have been months of unpaid rent and other issues.

A Bitcoin mining company has sued its Detroit landlord in federal court. In the complaint, Syosset, N.Y.-based Cheetah Miner USA Inc. says tensions developed between it and its landlord, 19200 Glendale LLC, toward the end of 2022.

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Stephen Dunn, a Bodman PLC attorney in Troy representing 19200 Glendale, said in an email on Monday that “ ... Cheetah Miner and its corporate guarantor failed to make months of rent payments owed, breached the written lease agreement, defaulted, went dark and silent for months, abandoned the lease- hold premises (left its equipment behind), and only recently resurfaced strangely trying to extort money from the owner.”

Dunn continued: “19200 Glendale strongly denies any suggestion that it somehow owes any money to the defaulting tenant. 19200 Glendale will vigorously prosecute its counterclaims against the defaulting tenant and its guarantor, looks forward tonal adjudication on the merits, and is con dent that it will prevail after all of the relevant facts are revealed through a comprehensive discovery process monitored by the court.” e lease, which is included in court exhibits, says Cheetah Miner took about 23,150 square feet in the roughly 190,000-square-foot building at 19200 Glendale, north of I-96 and west of the Davison Freeway. Mining is how transactions through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, for example, are veri ed. When a transaction is made, each is linked to previous and future transactions, which creates what’s known as a blockchain, which is a ledger that documents crypto transactions. Miners are paid with new coins and transaction fees.

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