Recently rumors have been flying around that Bitmain is losing steam and that its days could be numbered. But, after much delay, it has finally submitted a drag application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to launch an IPO. The IPO would give Bitmain access to a huge amount of financial resources and would make it the world’s largest publicly traded crypto mining firm – overtaking Hut 8. While it has pressed the fact that the application is only a draft and that many details could still change, it appears to be a fairly basic application.
The draft application highlights key features about the business, such as the technology it provides and its massive power over the Bitcoin network. Bitmain also uses the draft to describe itself as “China’s second largest and among the world’s top ten fabless IC design companies in terms of revenues in 2017.”
Bitmain Losing Dominance?
Over the past few months, Bitmain has been losing its control over the Bitcoin network hash rate. At its peak, it controlled just over 43% of the total network hash rate, but that number has slipped by more than 10% in recent months. One of the biggest contributing factors to this is powerful new competition.
Bitewei has sprung onto the scene and has built the Bitmain killing ASIC mining chip. While its mining rigs aren’t as powerful as Bitmain, they are far more efficient, meaning that when you add a few together to create the same hash rate, Bitewei’s consume much less power.
Launching a New Miner Just in Time
Literally saved by the bell, earlier this week Bitmain announced the launch of its new ASIC mining chip. This new chip is touted to be its most powerful ASIC mining chip ever created and it will be integrated into its new range of mining rigs. Bitmain has yet to announce the final hash rate output of the new set of chips, but it has boasted that they contain over 1 billion transistors and is optimized for efficiency.
Competition is Heating Up
Bitfury is one of Bitmain’s larger competitors and it too has had some news about a new product range. Bitfury is launching its new ASIC mining chip – dubbed Bitfury Clarke – and is set to deploy it into the next range of mining rigs it ships. Bitfury Clarke will also be used in the company’s trademark BlockBoxes – the kind of hardware Hut 8 uses. The Bitfury Clark ASIC chips might not be the most powerful on the market, but they are more efficient than most others.
At the current price of BTC, network difficulty, and with a cost of $0.10 per MWh of electricity, Bitfury Clarke will only run at a loss of $8 a day, whereas the new Bitmain chip will cost you considerably more.
There is still a long way to go before Bitmain submits its final application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but we can expect to see it happen within the next few months. It has already set itself a deadline of December to launch its IPO, but it has still yet to release its Q2 2018 earnings report – something that will delay the IPO process if not done soon.
