Bitmain
Bitmain Technologies Ltd., or Bitmain, is a privately owned company headquartered in Beijing, China that designs application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips for bitcoin mining.
Company
It was founded by Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan in 2013. Prior to founding Bitmain, Wu was a financial analyst and private equity fund manager and Zhan was running DivaIP, a startup that allowed users to stream television to a computer screen via a set-top box.[1]
By 2018 it had become the world's largest designer of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips for bitcoin mining.[2] The company also operates BTC.com and Antpool, historically two of the largest bitcoin mining pools.[3] In an effort to boost BCH prices, Antpool "burned" 12% of the BCH they mined by sending them to irrecoverable addresses.[4]
Bitmain was reportedly profitable in early 2018,[5] with a net profit of $742.7 million in the first half of 2018,[6] and negative operating cash flow.[2] TechCrunch reported that unsold inventory ballooned to one billion dollars in the second quarter of 2018.[7]
In June 2018, Wu told Bloomberg that Bitmain was considering an IPO for producing capital to expand its producing hardware.[8] The company completed its $1 billion pre-IPO registration with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in August,[9] and filed for IPO in September.[6][2]
Bitmain Technologies filed for IPO on September 26th, 2018 with the Hong Kong regulatory agency and released their first public financial statement and ending the speculation on the company's plans at a time where Bitcoin prices have dropped 65% as compared to December 2017 which have hurt mining hardware sale that accounts 96% of their revenue. [10][11] Bitmain will use a dual class share structure. In Bitmain's case, this means the share held by company's founders would count as 10 votes. [11]
Bitmain's first product was the Antminer S1 which is a ASIC Bitcoin miner making 180 GH/s while using 80-200 Watts of power.[12]
Bitmain as of 2018 had 11 mining farms operating in China.[7]
Bitmain was involved in the 2018 Bitcoin Cash split, siding on the side of Bitcoin Cash ABC alongside Roger Ver.[13]
References
- ↑ Joon Ian Wong: China’s Bitmain dominates bitcoin mining. Now it wants to cash in on artificial intelligence In: Quartz. Abgerufen am 4. Dezember 2017 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ a b c Louise Lucas: China’s crypto mining rig-maker Bitmain plans Hong Kong listing In: Financial Times, 27. September 2018 (britisches Englisch).
- ↑ Chinese bitcoin mining giant Bitmain had revenues of $2.8 billion in the first half of the year In: Business Insider. Abgerufen am 7. November 2018
- ↑ Why a Cryptocurrency Mining Giant Is Burning Money in a ‘Black Hole’ In: Motherboard, 20. April 2018. Abgerufen am 7. November 2018 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ Evelyn Cheng: Secretive Chinese bitcoin mining company may have made as much money as Nvidia last year, CNBC, 23 February 2018. Abgerufen im 30 April 2018
- ↑ a b Bailey Hu: Bitmain files for IPO in Hong Kong In: TechNode, 27. September 2018 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ a b Joyce Yang: Bitmain IPO concerns: the crypto giant recorded a big loss in Q2 2018, Techcrunch, October 2018. Abgerufen im 8 November 2018
- ↑ Blake Schmidt: Crypto's 32-Year-Old Billionaire Mining King Considers an IPO, Bloomberg, 7 June 2018. Abgerufen im 28 September 2018
- ↑ Runhua Zhao: World's largest bitcoin mining company Bitmain plans an IPO greater than Facebook's In: TechNode, 13. August 2018 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ Michael Patterson: The World's Biggest Crypto Company Just Opened the Books for Its IPO. In: www.bloomberg.com. 26. September 2018, abgerufen am 21. Oktober 2018.
- ↑ a b Alun John: Cryptocurrency giant Bitmain chooses Hong Kong for IPO In: U.S.. Abgerufen am 21. Oktober 2018 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ MANIC MINERS: Ten Bitcoin generating machines. Abgerufen am 6. November 2018 (englisch).
- ↑ Olga Kharif: Bitcoin Cash Clash Is Costing Billions With No End in Sight, Bloomberg, 17 November 2018. Abgerufen im 18 November 2018