The Swedish tax authority has demanded that six crypto companies located in the northern city of Boden pay back nearly 540 million Swedish kronor, which is approximately 56 million US dollars. The tax authorities stated that these companies concealed their crypto mining activities through specific business arrangements in order to claim tax benefits they were not entitled to.
This tax enforcement action indicates that Sweden's tax audits of the crypto mining industry are still ongoing. According to reports, between 2024 and 2026, 9 crypto companies have had their taxes adjusted, involving a total amount of over 500 million Swedish kronor.
The focus of the review is on the identification of mining activities.
Boden has long attracted crypto mining companies due to its reliable power supply and well-developed data center infrastructure. As early as 2018, about 10 such companies had already gathered in the area. However, with increasing concerns over electricity consumption for mining activities and tax issues, the Swedish government abolished the previous tax exemptions for data centers in 2023, which directly affected Bitcoin mining companies operating high-energy-consuming facilities there.
The head of intelligence at the Swedish Tax Agency, Patrik Lillqvist, stated that the companies under investigation often employed special arrangements with the aim of concealing that their actual business was mining, in order to obtain tax treatments that were not applicable to them. Swedish media, SVT, also reported in a 2024 investigation that the local cryptocurrency industry might have resulted in the state missing out on about 1 billion Swedish kronor in taxes, with most of these cases concentrated in Boheden.
Multiple cases have reached the courts.
Several companies have filed lawsuits regarding tax decisions. According to reports from SVT, in cases already heard by the Swedish Administrative Courts and Administrative Appeal Courts, the courts have so far mostly supported the determinations of the tax authorities.
Among them, Bikupan Datacenter is one of the focal points of contention. The company was previously operated in Boden and Robertsforsch and has now been granted corporate reorganization due to its inability to repay debts. Its tax disputes have been submitted to Sweden's Supreme Administrative Court, and the case is still under consideration.
Bikupan does not agree with the tax authorities' determination of historical business operations. The company's management claims that the actual encryption mining was conducted by external mining pools independent of the HIVE group, while Bikupan provided the computing power infrastructure. This statement contradicts the judgment of the tax authorities, which insist that the related activities are considered mining operations.
HIVE directs the Boden facility to AI for computation.
Bikupan is associated with HIVE Digital Technologies. HIVE previously stated that, due to disagreement with the application of Swedish tax regulations in local business operations, the company had reduced the scale of Bitcoin mining at its facilities in Boden.
Meanwhile, HIVE is redirecting some of the infrastructure originally used for crypto-mining towards high-performance computing and artificial intelligence services. The company previously disclosed that the Boden site is being transformed into a Tier high-performance computing data center with liquid cooling design, with the goal of supporting 2000 Nvidia GPU units in operation.
From the operational data, HIVE continued to expand its business in AI as of the fiscal year 2026. Its high-performance computing business generated annual revenue of 19.5 million US dollars, which is higher than the 10 million US dollars of the previous fiscal year; the recurring annual revenue from BUZZ HPC business reached 35 million US dollars.
This means that tax disputes in Sweden not only affect the historical tax burdens of local mining companies but are also prompting some enterprises to readjust the use of their infrastructure, shifting from solely mining to new businesses such as AI computing.
