Is this basically like giving HashFast another chance? Why would we do that?
Not. This is for trying to repay HF's customers since HF was unable to do it and all they could do it to make some millions vanish.
How much do you think the actual markup is? $260 is pretty cheap. 2000 x 260 = $520,000.00 HF has got to be making at least 30% margins. $156,000 is probably not enough to cover their customers.
They really aren't making any margins, in fact they're almost certainly losing money. It's just about mitigating loss. Right now they have a bunch of stuff with somewhat unknown value (the chips themselves, IP) and some stuff with a known value that's difficult to recover (coolers, fans, cases, long leadtime PSU parts, etc). If (example only, I don't know the numbers so don't take this as a real value) you've paid $200 per kit of stuff and can spend another $150 in order to sell it for $260, you've essentially turned $200 in parts into $110. Yeah you lose money, but it's better than liquidating them for pennies or letting them sit on the shelf for another 6 months.