CUENTAS SIGNS 36 MONTHS AND $5.9 MILLION FOR A WEST TEXAS BITCOIN MINE — THE PAUSE BUTTON NEEDS THE OTHER SIDE’S SIGNATURE

Cuentas signed a power and colocation agreement with Power Upp USA on September 20 for a mining site in Seminole, Texas. The press release the same day leads with the upside. Phase one is one container, 2.4 megawatts, about 420 ASIC miners, roughly 1.5 bitcoin a month, about $130,000 of revenue and up to $43,000 of monthly profit. Phase two is ten containers, 24 megawatts, about 4,200 miners, $1.3 million a month and about $430,000 of profit.

The 8-K carries what the release does not. There is a one-time charge of $500,000 per container set, $5.0 million if all ten go in, plus a $90,000 security deposit per set, another $900,000. Call it $5.9 million of fixed charges to reach the $430,000 a month the release advertises. That is a fourteen month payback on the company's own numbers, and the release mentions neither figure.

Then there is the escape hatch. The agreement gives Cuentas a suspension right if bitcoin closes below $55,000 for fifteen consecutive trading days. Read the next clause. It is subject to the parties' mutual written agreement, it costs a $7,500 suspension fee, and it runs for at most one calendar month. A right you can use only when the counterparty agrees is not a right. It is a request with a price on it.

Look at where that trigger sits. The revenue math in the release is built on bitcoin above $86,000. At $55,000 the same 1.5 bitcoin a month is worth $82,500 instead of $130,000, and the energy charge of five cents per kilowatt hour does not fall with the price. The mine stops paying long before the clause that lets you stop it becomes available. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $84,221.