ACQUISITIONS

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2022

Business Combination and Asset Acquisition [Abstract]

3. ACQUISITIONS

In June 2020, Core Scientific entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement with Atrio Inc. (“Atrio”) to acquire certain assets of Atrio in exchange for $1.2 million cash consideration and 0.5 million shares of the Company’s common stock. The Company and Atrio contemplated a valuation for the transaction of approximately $2.4 million based on an estimate of the fair value of the Company’s common stock of $2.19 per share which was allocated to cost of the acquired software intangible assets.

In a separate transaction in June 2020, the Company entered into an agreement with RStor, Inc. (“RStor”) to obtain a non-exclusive license to three specific patents held by RStor for consideration of 0.4 million shares of the Company’s common stock. The Company and RStor contemplated a valuation for the transaction of approximately $0.9 million based on an estimate of the fair value of the Company’s common stock of $2.19 per share which was allocated to the cost of the acquired patent intangible assets.

The software acquired from Atrio and the acquired patents from RStor are not businesses under ASC 805, Business Combinations, because substantially all the fair value of the acquired assets is concentrated in a single intellectual property asset. Accordingly, the asset purchases are accounted for as asset acquisitions where the cost of the acquisition, measured as the fair value of the cash consideration transferred and the common stock issued by the Company, is allocated to the assets acquired.

In March 2022, the Company reclassified all the software intangible assets related to the Atrio and RStor asset acquisitions to held for sale as a result of the expected sale of the software anticipated to occur in 2022. As of March 31, 2021, the Company had $2.2 million of software intangible assets classified as held for sale and presented within Prepaid expenses and other current assets on the Company’s Consolidated Balance Sheets. The Company did not record any loss on the software intangible assets held for sale during the three months ended March 31, 2022.

Blockcap Acquisition

On July 30, 2021, the Company acquired 100% of the equity interest in Blockcap, one of its largest hosting customers. Blockcap is a blockchain technology company with industrial scale digital asset mining operations. Blockcap’s primary historical business was the mining of digital asset coins and tokens, primarily Bitcoin and, to a lesser extent, Siacoin and Ethereum. While Blockcap did sell or exchange the digital assets it mined to fund its growth strategies or for general corporate purposes from time to time, it generally retained its digital assets as investments in anticipation of continued adoption of digital assets as a “store of value” and a more accessible and efficient medium of exchange than traditional fiat currencies. In addition to mining, holding and exchanging digital assets, Blockcap also evaluated and completed investments in related technologies and ancillary businesses, including RADAR, an early stage company focused on technology enhancement and development in the digital asset industry that it acquired on July 1, 2021. The acquisition of Blockcap significantly expanded the Company’s self-mining operations and increased the number of miners it owns. The Company intends to utilize RADAR’s business assets and the technical expertise of its principals in enhancing the Company’s existing blockchain mining technology and software and in further strengthening the Company’s leadership position and value creation potential through the development of products and services that utilize blockchain technologies.

Consideration consisted of the issuance of 113.9 million shares of the Company’s common stock, approximately 6.8 million shares of the Company’s restricted stock and approximately 7.3 million options to purchase shares of the Company’s common stock. The acquisition has been accounted for as a business combination using the acquisition method of accounting, whereby the net assets acquired and the liabilities assumed were recorded at fair value. The Company and Blockcap had preexisting relationships which were settled on the acquisition date. Using the estimated purchase price for the transaction, the Company has allocated the purchase price to identifiable assets and liabilities based upon preliminary fair value estimates. The excess of the purchase price over the fair value of the net identifiable assets acquired was allocated to goodwill.

In a business combination, the initial allocation of the purchase price is considered preliminary and therefore subject to change until the end of the measurement period (not to exceed one year from the acquisition date). Because the measurement period is still open, certain fair value estimates may change once all information necessary to make a final fair value assessment has been received. Specifically, the measurement period is still open for consideration transferred, property, plant and equipment, net and deferred tax liabilities as the Company is still in the process of obtaining information about certain shares allocated to Blockcap shareholders and certain transactions between Blockcap and Core that were outstanding as of July 30, 2021.

The following table summarizes the fair values for each major class of assets acquired and liabilities assumed at the acquisition date. The Company retained the services of certified valuation specialists to assist with assigning estimated values to certain acquired assets and assumed liabilities. Amounts initially disclosed for the estimated values of certain acquired assets and liabilities assumed were adjusted through March 31, 2022 based on information arising after the initial preliminary valuation.

PPA Allocation


Consideration (in thousands):
113.9 million common shares valued at $10.11 per share1,2	$	1,151,985
Fair value of replaced Blockcap share-based payments attributable to pre-combination service3	21,768
Settlement of Blockcap debt4	25,607
Settlement of preexisting contracts5	(60,522)

Total Consideration	$	1,138,838
Fair value of assets acquired, and liabilities assumed:
Cash and cash equivalents	$	704

Digital assets-Bitcoin	73,304
Digital assets-Ethereum	365
Digital assets-Bitcoin cash	8
Digital assets-Siacoin	554
Digital assets-Other	3,329
Other current assets	633
Intangible assets, net	2,925
Property, plant and equipment, net	97,964
Other noncurrent assets	1,293
Total assets acquired	181,079
Accounts payable	492
Accrued expenses and other	22,647
Deferred revenue	414
Other current liabilities	7,204

Deferred tax liability	9,003
Total liabilities assumed	$	39,760
Total identifiable net assets	$	141,319
Goodwill on acquisition	$	997,519

1 113.9 million common shares represent the equivalent Core Scientific common shares issued to Blockcap shareholders as consideration for the purchase.

2 The price per share of our common shares was estimated to be $10.11. As the Core Scientific common shares were not listed on a public marketplace, the calculation of the fair value of the common shares was subject to a greater degree of estimation. Given the absence of a public market, an estimate of the fair value of the common shares was required at the time of the Blockcap Acquisition. Objective and subjective factors were considered in determining the estimated fair value and because there was no active trading of the Core Scientific equity shares on an established securities market, an independent valuation specialist was engaged. The valuation was determined by weighting the outcomes of scenarios estimating share value based on both public company valuations and private company valuations. Both a market approach and common stock equivalency model were used to determine a range of outcomes, which were weighted based on probability to determine the result.

3 Reflects the estimated fair value of replaced Blockcap share-based payments allocated to purchase price based on the proportion of service related to the pre-combination period

4 Reflects the fair value of loans issued by the Company in July 2021 that were effectively used to settle debt that had previously been held by Blockcap. Refer to Note 5 for further discussion of the debt issuance.

5 Blockcap had preexisting hosting and equipment contracts with the Company that were effectively settled by the Company’s acquisition of Blockcap. As a result, the consideration transferred to Blockcap has been adjusted by the deferred revenue balances that were settled at the time of acquisition.

Intangible Assets and Liabilities

Goodwill with an assigned value of $1.00 billion represents the excess of the consideration transferred over the estimated fair values of assets acquired and liabilities assumed in the Blockcap acquisition. The goodwill recognized includes the assembled workforce of Blockcap and intangible assets that do not qualify for separate recognition. None of the goodwill resulting from the acquisition is deductible for tax purposes. All of the goodwill acquired is allocated to the Mining segment. Management believes the acquisition of Blockcap strengthens its presence in the data mining market due to the scale of its operations. These factors are the basis for the excess purchase price paid over the value of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed, resulting in goodwill.

Other intangible assets acquired in the Blockcap acquisition consisted of $2.8 million developed technology intangibles and $0.1 million of customer relationships with a weighted-average useful life of 3 years.