By
Bena Ilyas
April 19th, 2024
The company has only managed to raise 30% of the initial sum.
The Bitcoin Group failed in the attempt to raise 20 million Australian dollars for an initial public offering (IPO). The company announced that it has only managed to raise 5,927,168.40 Australian dollars which makes up something around 30% of the initial plans.
Although Bitcoin Group didn’t achieve its goal, Chief Executive Officer Sam Lee describes the result as “solid” and tells CNBC that “it is sufficient for the company to execute its current strategy of expanding our footprint through acquiring new mining equipment.”
Initially the company planned to invest 18 million Australian dollars in mining equipment and facilities and 2 million for general corporate purposes, including listing costs.
Bitcoin Group was launched in 2014 with main mission “to make trust more accessible via Bitcoin’s underlying Blockchain technology”. Unfortunately it was three times denied to list on the Australian Stock Exchange due to poor management or the fact that presentation of a Bitcoin mining concern on the Stock Exchange is basically unlikely.
“As the world’s first IPO in our industry, we are no doubt setting a precedent…ASIC’s role to protect Australian investors means they need to understand our unique business model,” Lee said in September. “We appreciate the patience ASIC have taken to understand what we do, and thank their co-operation in helping ensure our prospectus accurately reflects the current and future opportunity of Bitcoin Group.”
Indeed the IPO process is hard to undertake in the Australia’s conservative investment community. Thus even if Bitcoin Group didn’t succeed in raising the necessary amount, it did make a good try. The situation is likely to change in the upcoming years as Australian financial institutions are taking a closer look at bitcoin and blockchain spheres. Even the Australian Stock Exchange is known to be studying blockchain to settle trades on its market. However there is no information yet concerning listing Bitcoin Group on the ASX.
The reliability of bitcoin still arises doubts. The cryptocurrency has been subject to criticism for facilitating illegal activity, given that it can be used anonymously. “As an investor I would think twice before investing in a bitcoin mining company,” says Nicholas Debock, a venture capitalist at Balderton Capital in London. “Overall, in the bitcoin space, we saw a lot of venture capitalists investing in bitcoin in the last three years, but we don’t yet see money coming out.”
Confidence of success makes up half of the victory. Sam Lee must know this common truth and sticks to his point of view: “This is a billion dollar opportunity rather than a million dollar one. Bitcoin will revolutionize the world of finance because it has the potential to make the world of finance more accountable and cheaper to operate.”