Bitfury is exploring a range of minority options like selling a minority stake or raise debt financing, to go public.
On Thursday, October 25th, citing an anonymous source, Bloomberg reported that Europe-based crypto mining startup Bitfury is exploring strategic options for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). If true, this could turn to be Europe’s first major listing from the crypto industry.
The people familiar with the matter said:
“Bitfury has reached out to global investment banks as it explores making its trading debut in Amsterdam, London or Hong Kong as early as next year.”
Currently, Bitfury is exploring a range of minority options like selling a minority stake or raise debt financing. If Bitfury manages to go public in the next two years time frame, the company valuations can shoot from $3 billion to $5 billion. However, all this will depend on the changing conditions and health of the crypto market.
Founded in 2011, Bitfury specializes in making crypto-mining gears. Moreover, the company reported a revenue of $450 million for the last 12 months through March. Co-founder Valery Nebesny and Chief Executive Officer Valery Vavilov share a majority stake in the company.
Bitfury is known for working on some interesting projects in the blockchain and the cryptocurrency space. The company has built an efficient algorithm called Flare for routing on the Lightning Network, Flare functions as a secure off-chain channel for instant transactions with less commission.
Last month itself, Birfury announced Bitfury Clarke, a new generation of BTC mining hardware that is based on an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip. Bitfury Clarke is sold individually along with being integrated into Bitfury’s other BTC mining hardware. Bitfury plans to implement this new ASIC chips in its mining centers in Iceland, Canada, Georgia, and Norway.
Earlier this year in July 2018, Bitfury partnered with Toronto-based BTC mining company Hut 8 for the completion of second mining facility in Canada. Bitfury provided the company some access to its mining hardware besides other things. This new facility is now the world’s “largest publicly-traded” operator by capacity.
Bitfury is not the first crypto-mining company to consider filing an IPO. Last month itself, its Chinese competitor Bitmain filed for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). Bitmain is said to be the big daddy of all and the largest Bitcoin mining company in the world.
Bitmain’s application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are quite popular in the mining industry and has helped the company achieve new highs. In addition to the traditional ASICs, Bitmain is also working on new mining hardware.
“We have focused on developing mining hardware with different algorithms covering major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, Litecoin, Dash and Zcash, which makes us one of the few companies offering mining solutions for various cryptocurrencies,” the company said.
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