Cryptocurrency
A $40 Billion Plan to Cash Out Of Bitcoin via @bloomberg
As reported by Bloomberg, “The 1980s cyberpunk novels that predicted today’s internet failed to conceive of anything as outlandish or contradictory as Bitcoin: A digital currency that’s spent nowhere, a commodity that’s used for nothing, and a libertarian dream that’s effectively run by elites. “Now, after its 66-percent price drop from December highs, comes yet another fantastical […]
As reported by Bloomberg, “The 1980s cyberpunk novels that predicted today’s internet failed to conceive of anything as outlandish or contradictory as Bitcoin: A digital currency that’s spent nowhere, a commodity that’s used for nothing, and a libertarian dream that’s effectively run by elites.
“Now, after its 66-percent price drop from December highs, comes yet another fantastical plot twist. The Chinese company that makes most of the world’s Bitcoin-mining rigs — as well as a big pile of mining and crypto-trading profit — is thinking about a stock-market listing. The proceeds would be used to develop the kind of sophisticated hardware that would let it compete head-on with tech giants like Google in areas way beyond Bitcoin.
“The firm in question is Bitmain. It is run by a 32-year-old billionaire — Jihan Wu — and has a business model that might make an antitrust regulator cancel their holiday leave. Bitmain designs and sells the powerful custom chips used to mine cryptocurrencies, but it makes money from mining too. In Gold Rush parlance, it sells the pickaxes and owns and works the mines. Its market share in the former is 80 percent; in the latter it’s 40 percent.”