NYDIG, IREN Reach Confidential Settlement After Failed Appeal and Looming Examination

Bitcoin miner IREN has reached a confidential settlement with creditor NYDIG, bringing an abrupt end to a protracted legal battle over $105 million in defaulted equipment loans tied to 35,000 Antminer S19s.

The deal was disclosed in PwC’s sixth report to the Canadian court on Aug. 14. While the terms remain strictly confidential, the settlement halts examinations of IREN’s co-founders William and Daniel Roberts, which were due to commence in Sydney in June after Australian courts recognized the Canadian bankruptcy proceedings of two IREN special-purpose vehicles (SPVs).

From loan default to cross-border litigation

The dispute stems from a 2021 financing arrangement in which NYDIG provided $105 million in loans to IREN subsidiaries IE CA3 and IE CA4 to acquire the miners, pledged as collateral. The SPVs later entered into hosting and hashrate lease agreements with other IREN entities, paying a fixed rate of CAD$0.08/kWh for hosting while charging IREN a fixed leasing fee of CAD$0.096/kWh for the use of the financed machines.

That structure left the SPVs with little margin. Throughout 2022, they generated only about $50/PH/s in daily revenue while incurring costs of roughly $41.4/PH/s, far below the prevailing bitcoin hashprice range of $60–$240/PH/s at the time. When hashprice fell to $60/PH/s in November 2022, the SPVs defaulted on their repayment obligations, and the financed miners were shut down.

NYDIG appointed PwC as receiver and trustee of the Canadian SPVs in early 2023. PwC later sold the miners in a depressed market and placed the entities into bankruptcy proceedings. The Canadian court also ruled that the hashpower lease agreements should be declared void as “fraudulent conveyances,” finding that the arrangements prevented the SPVs from ever generating sufficient profits to repay creditors.

Push to probe IREN’s leadership

PwC initially examined certain IREN executives in Canada, but later told the Federal Court of Australia that those sessions had been “unsatisfactory.” The trustee said it faced time limits, incomplete answers, and an inability to examine key individuals — including Daniel Roberts and independent director David Bartholomew.

PwC argued that to recover value for creditors, it needed to probe deeper into IREN’s corporate structure and the commercial rationale behind the fixed-rate hosting and hashrate lease agreements. The trustee also wanted to review intercompany transactions across the IREN group to determine whether decisions made by the co-founders or board members contributed to the insolvency of the Canadian subsidiaries.

That was the basis for PwC’s request to examine the Roberts brothers and others in Australia, where IREN is headquartered.

Appeals dismissed, settlement reached

IREN resisted those efforts, appealing the recognition of the Canadian bankruptcies as foreign proceedings in Australia. In April 2025, the Full Court dismissed the appeal and ordered IREN to pay costs. A subsequent urgent application to block PwC’s examinations was also rejected in June, with the court clearing the way for questioning of the Roberts brothers to begin on June 16 in Sydney.

As PwC prepared to move forward, IREN and NYDIG entered settlement talks. By Aug. 14, PwC reported to the court that a confidential deal had been reached, ending the nearly three-year dispute.