It’s worth looking at the Squirrels Research Labs LLC (“SQRL”) / The Midwest Data Company LLC Chapter 11 case in the Northern District of Ohio (Case No. 21‑61491).
All of this is from public court filings and a whistleblower archive; what follows is a summary of what creditors and whistleblowers allege and what’s already in the court record. People should read the originals and form their own views.
High‑level summary of what’s alleged
According to creditor objections and exhibits in the SQRL case:
SQRL and an affiliate (Midwest Data) operated FPGA‑based mining and hosting.
Creditors and a whistleblower say thousands of Intel/Xilinx FPGA boards and the coins mined on them never made it onto the bankruptcy schedules. They argue that hardware and mining proceeds were diverted into related entities and undisclosed wallets instead of to the estate.
The same filings point to flows through offshore, non‑KYC exchanges (KuCoin, TradeOgre, etc.), and to wallets that allegedly held coins mined on estate hardware but were not disclosed in the bankruptcy.
There are also detailed allegations of insider transfers (roughly $2.89M total) to related companies and individuals before and around the filing, followed by an attempt to settle those claims for only $75.5K.
The bankruptcy court has approved a plan and issued some opinions, but as with any case, you have to distinguish between what’s alleged in objections and what the judge has actually ruled on.
Where to read the SQRL filings (CourtListener)
Main free docket (all entries, PDFs):
Joint SQRL / Midwest Data Chapter 11 docket:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61571770/squirrels-research-labs-llc-and-the-midwest-data-company-llc/The creditor side has pulled a lot of the key issues together in a few specific ECFs. These are all viewable without a PACER account via CourtListener:
ECF 332 – Objection describing “false filings”, Subchapter V eligibility issues, and commingling
(Argues that initial debt figures on the petition were understated and that entities were heavily commingled.)
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61571770/squirrels-research-labs-llc-and-the-midwest-data-company-llc/?page=8#entry-332ECF 353 – Whistleblower leak exhibit
(Filed as an exhibit; contains a Telegram/Discord leak where participants discuss staged mining “demos”, funding pitches, and some wallet details.)
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61571770/squirrels-research-labs-llc-and-the-midwest-data-company-llc/?page=9#entry-353ECF 354 – Objection to insurance‑settlement allocation
(Questions how fire‑insurance proceeds were divided between SQRL and the affiliate Midwest Data, and argues that the split favored an insider‑controlled shell.)
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61571770/squirrels-research-labs-llc-and-the-midwest-data-company-llc/?page=9#entry-354ECF 397 – Ad Hoc Committee objection to insider settlement
(About 40+ pages; summarizes alleged insider transfers, undisclosed crypto assets, missing hardware, and why creditors believe the proposed settlement with insiders is inadequate.)
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61571770/squirrels-research-labs-llc-and-the-midwest-data-company-llc/?page=11#entry-397ECF 403 – Debtor’s reply to the objections
(SQRL’s response, giving the debtor’s side of the story.)
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61571770/squirrels-research-labs-llc-and-the-midwest-data-company-llc/?page=11#entry-403For anyone who wants the full whistleblower archive in one place (raw chats, screenshots, etc.), there’s also a separate bundle:
Whistleblower leak archive:
https://dub.sh/wstlblowThat archive is what’s partly excerpted in ECF 353; it provides the underlying chat logs the objections are referring to.
How this ties back to Maranda/Northway
Some of the creditor and whistleblower materials in SQRL point out that Michael Maranda’s name appears in business relationships with SQRL insiders, and they argue that the patterns around missing hardware and hash look similar to what’s been alleged in the Northway / Bit Intelligence / MinedMap lawsuits. That connection is being made in the filings; it’s up to courts and investigators to decide how far it goes.
Again, these are allegations in civil and bankruptcy proceedings, not criminal convictions. The best thing you can do if you’re affected or just curious is read the primary documents above and draw your own conclusions.
Quick follow‑up on the SQRL side for anyone who wants to see how far some of these schemes allegedly went. The whistleblower leak tied to the Squirrels Research Labs (SQRL) bankruptcy isn’t just about sloppy accounting — it describes something out of a movie script.
The “Hollywood‑style” mining demo scam (per the leak)
According to the leaked Telegram/Discord chats that were later filed in the SQRL bankruptcy as an exhibit, insiders describe:
No real product yet:
At the time of key investor demos, the new “JC” / HBM‑based FPGA miner that was being pitched as a massively more efficient ETH miner was not ready to deliver the hashrate being promised.
Hidden GPU farm doing the real work:
The logs describe setting up a separate GPU farm to produce the actual hashrate, then routing that work through the demo system so investors would believe the performance was coming from the new hardware.
Hardware modification to conceal the trick:
One message describes soldering an RF component onto a development board and using thermal paste/placement tricks so that photos wouldn’t reveal the extra chip, making the setup look like a standard dev board.
Custom software “bridge” to fake the output:
The participants talk about writing software that would sit between the GPU farm and the development board in order to make the hashrate appear as though it originated on the board being shown to investors, while hiding the true source of the work.
Deliberate planning around investor due diligence:
The chats include discussions of how potential investors might try to verify the demo, and how to configure the system so that basic checks (screenshots, remote sessions, etc.) would still make it appear legitimate.
Target raise in the nine‑figure range:
The leak includes references to trying to obtain tens of millions per investor (numbers around 50–55 million USD per investor appear in the chat), with each investor apparently believing they were getting a unique or exclusive deal on the hardware line.
All of that is taken directly from the leaked messages; it’s the insiders’ own words as captured in that archive. The whistleblower describes it as a coordinated plan to stage a high‑end, technically convincing demo for large investors using a combination of modified hardware, hidden mining infrastructure, and custom software.
Where this shows up in the official record
The leak itself was later put before the bankruptcy court in the SQRL case:
ECF 353 – Exhibit with whistleblower leak (Telegram/Discord demo discussion, wallet hints, etc.)
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61571770/squirrels-research-labs-llc-and-the-midwest-data-company-llc/?page=9#entry-353That means it’s not just floating around as an anonymous ZIP file; it’s a filed exhibit in a federal bankruptcy case. The court hasn’t ruled on every implication of it, but anyone can read the chats in context and see exactly what was said.
If you want the full archive with all the conversations and screenshots (not just what fit into a single exhibit), the original leak is mirrored here:
Whistleblower archive (raw logs and supporting material):
https://dub.sh/wstlblowAgain, to be clear: what I’ve described is what the leaked messages say and how they’ve been presented in the SQRL proceedings. It’s up to courts and investigators to decide which parts they treat as established fact, but from a tech / mining point of view it’s one of the more elaborate “fake demo” schemes I’ve seen documented in this space.
