Everything in Observer
Financial Services
Business Description
Pow.re is a bitcoin mining and hashrate financialization company headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. It operates high-density computation (HDC) facilities in Northern Canada and Paraguay and is building a derivatives and financial services platform for bitcoin miners to trade hashrate as a standardized commodity.
Co-founders Mike Cohen (CEO) and Ian Descoteaux (CTO) both started mining bitcoin in Montreal. Cohen has worked as a systems engineer since 2013; Descoteaux left aerospace in 2010 to scale a mining operation to 40 MW. Before co-founding Pow.re, Descoteaux oversaw a top-ten bitcoin mining pool and cloud mining platform. Chief Operating Officer Maxime holds an MSc in Digital Currencies and has led data center builds and renewable energy integrations across multiple continents. The company now employs more than 20 people.
Three product lines divide the business. Pow.re Generation self-operates HDC mining sites on 100% renewable electricity sourced from stranded hydroelectric resources. Four facilities across Northern Canada and Paraguay account for more than 20 MW of deployed capacity, producing approximately 840 PH/s at a fleet average efficiency of 24 joules per terahash. In Paraguay, Pow.re draws on hydroelectric power from the Itaipú reservoir. In March 2023, the company secured a 100 MW long-term power contract in that country, up from a then-operating two-site, 12 MW Paraguay base.
Pow.re Markets is a hashrate derivatives platform where miners can hedge exposure to bitcoin price volatility, mining difficulty, and energy cost fluctuations through physically delivered contracts. The product targets institutional investors seeking bitcoin mining revenue exposure without direct site ownership or capital-intensive ASIC procurement. Pow.re Metrics provides free real-time mining pool audits, payout verification, and a pool review system to address opacity in pool payout reporting.
In February 2023, Pow.re closed a US$9.2 million Series A at a US$150 million post-money valuation. Haru United Pte Ltd led the round alongside Trinito Corporation and RFD Capital Pte Ltd. A separate US$18 million strategic investment from Haru capitalized the company's first Paraguay HDC site. Advisory board appointments at that time included Anthony Levesque, former VP of Operations at Bitfarms (Nasdaq: BITF), and Carson Smith, CEO of SBI Crypto.
In May 2025, Pow.re signed a letter of intent to acquire Block Green AG, a Switzerland-based Bitcoin liquidity protocol providing revenue-streaming, lending, and hedging services to miners and HPC data center operators. The deal extends Pow.re's bitcoin financial services platform to include structured liquidity products. It is structured as a 100% equity swap with additional bitcoin and USD consideration. Pow.re will commit a baseload of hashpower to Block Green's marketplace for at least 24 months post-close, and Block Green CEO Sebastien Hess is expected to join Pow.re's board of directors upon completion.
