Riot Repays Coinbase Loan, Ends $200 Million Bitcoin-Backed Facility
This article first appeared in The Energy Mag. The original article can be viewed here. The Energy Mag (formerly The Miner Mag) provides news, data, and insights on the energy–compute–markets nexus.
The bitcoin miner and data center developer completed the voluntary repayment on Sept. 21, according to a Friday filing with the SEC. Riot paid all outstanding principal and accrued interest without incurring an early termination fee or penalty. Coinbase’s commitment to provide further loans also ended.
The facility carried a fixed annual interest rate of 6.15% following an April 2026 amendment that extended its maturity to April 20, 2027. Riot had fully drawn the $200 million facility. At that rate, a $200 million balance would carry about $12.3 million in annual interest.
The repayment removes restrictions under the agreement on a substantial pool of collateral. As of June 30, Riot had pledged 5,821 bitcoin, valued at about $340.7 million, to secure the loan. That represented roughly 51% of its total holdings of 11,380 bitcoin at the time.
The agreement covered pledged bitcoin, USDC and cash held with Coinbase Custody Trust. Riot said the security interests were released concurrently with repayment, but did not disclose the quantity of bitcoin pledged immediately before termination.
Riot originally obtained a $100 million bitcoin-backed facility in April 2025 to fund strategic initiatives and general corporate purposes. The original borrowing rate was the greater of the federal funds target range’s upper limit or 3.25%, plus 4.5 percentage points — implying a minimum annual rate of 7.75%.
The company doubled the facility to $200 million the following month. That amendment included a one-time $1 million fee for the increase. The April 2026 revision subsequently replaced the floating-rate structure with the fixed rate.
Although Riot repaid the debt about seven months before its revised maturity, the agreement’s early termination fee applied only through the four-month anniversary of the original April 21, 2026, maturity date. That window ended Aug. 21, leaving no fee payable on the September repayment.
The move comes as Riot expands its data center business alongside bitcoin mining. In August, the company announced a 20-year lease for 191 megawatts of computing capacity at its Rockdale campus with an unnamed artificial intelligence developer. Riot said the agreement was expected to generate about $9.1 billion in revenue over its initial term.
