cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency mining equipment maker Bitmain bails on IPO, for now – MarketWatch


Cryptocurrency mining equipment maker Bitmain Technologies said on Tuesday that it had postponed its plan to go public, citing a plunge in digital currency prices.

On Monday, the company’s expiration date for its initial public offering lapsed, and on Tuesday, the company confirmed that plans to list on Hong Kong’s stock exchange had been put on the back burner.

“Bitmain’s listing application to HKex in September 2018 has reached its 6-month expiration date. We do recognize that despite the huge potential of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, it remains a relatively young industry which is proving its value. We will restart the listing application work at an appropriate time in the future,” the company said in a news release.

The Beijing-based company first filed its IPO plans in September 2018 when it released financial statements showing a staggering $700 million revenue for the six months ending June 2018 on revenue of $2.8 billion. Additionally, as of June 30, 2018, the company said its collection of digital currencies was valued at $886.9 billion.

Read: Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain says it booked $700 million first-half profit as it files for IPO

However, as crypto prices tumbled, so did the company’s profitability. In February, CoinDesk reported that the company lost $500 million in the third quarter of 2018.



Bitcoin

Read: Here’s how much it costs to mine a single bitcoin in your country

Since peaking toward the end of 2018, the price of major cryptocurrencies tumbled as much as 90%, with the total value of all cryptocurrencies losing as much as $600 billion, squashing plans for a number of crypto-related firms. “The bear market at the end of 2018 brought both challenges and opportunities that Bitmain will work hard at addressing in 2019,” the company said.

Despite the setback, the company said it continues to invest in the nascent industry. “We continue to fund open-source developers, projects and organizations. For those that we see potential and share our vision, we fund them, often with no strings attached.”

Bitmain did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

In most recent trade, one bitcoin












BTCUSD, +0.78%










 fetched around $3,900, mostly unchanged on the year, but down close to 80% from its all-time high near $20,000.

Read: Mining bitcoin is 3 times more expensive than mining gold, research paper finds

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