‘Sequoia, IDG to invest in Bitmain’

HONG KONG: Sequoia Capital and IDG Capital are investing in Beijing-based Bitmain Technologies Ltd, the world’s largest bitcoin mining organisation, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bitmain is raising US$50 million (RM213.5 million) from several venture firms to boost its profile among mainstream investors, said the people. Sequoia and the other firms also planned to provide the company with more guidance on management, said the people.

Bitmain, which produces chips and machines for mining bitcoin and operates its own mining facilities, has benefited from the rise in the currency’s market value, now about US$75 billion.

The startup said last month that its own valuation was “in the billions” and it was weighing a possible initial public offering.

Bitmain said it was planning to produce chips for artificial intelligence and invest in mining facilities in the United States. The company led by founders Wu Jihan and Micree Zhan has been at the centre of disputes over how to expand use of the cryptocurrency.

Operating the largest mining collective — a network of computers that verify transactions made on the bitcoin distributed ledger — Wu has championed the idea of increasing block sizes of the network that were previously capped at one megabyte to enable faster transactions.