World’s Largerst Crypto Mining Company Bitmain Reveals $2.8 Billion Revenue As It Files For IPO

News and Analysis
27.09.2018

After months of speculation, the Beijing based mining giant Bitmain Technologies has officially made an application for its initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE), according to a recently published document.

The draft which was posted by HKEX on Wednesday, September 26, doesn’t specify on how much Bitmain will be valued at, neither did it clarify the total number of shares being offered nor the timeframe for the firm’s public offering, TechCrunch reports.

According to Bitmain’s financial statements, the company showed revenue of $2.8 billion till June 2018, and gross profits of more than $1 billion according to Bloomberg. These numbers are especially impressive taking into consideration that the market value of Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies has dropped by more than 75% since January.

The 2018 first half figures were also an exponential increase from the first half of 2017, when revenues comprised $274.5 million. The sale of mining hardware made up 94 percent of Bitmain’s revenue for the first half of 2018, up from 90 percent in 2017.

The company said it posted $701 million in net profit in 2017, up from $104 million in 2016. For the first half of this year, it is claiming a gross profit of $743 million. (Operational profit touched $1 billion for that period.)

Bitmain is best known for its Antminer devices, and that accounts for most of its revenue: 77 percent in 2016, 90 percent in 2017, and 94 percent in the first half of 2018.

The company also reported that it holds $886.9 million worth in Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Dash (DASH). Some of these holdings come from proprietary mining, while the rest came from sales paid in cryptocurrencies and rewards generated from Bitmain’s affiliated mining pools, including Antpool and BTC.com, AI chips and blockchain services.

As of June 30, 2018, Bitmain had 80,000 customers, up from 46,00 at the end of 2017, with the majority of them located in China and other Asian countries, the U.S., and Europe.

However, there are some signs that 2018 comes with more challenges. Gross margin in the first six months was 36 percent, down from 48 percent in 2017 and 54 percent in 2016. Contributing to that, the cost of sale percentage in the first half of 2018 rose to 64 percent from 51 and 52 percent in 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Bitmain is trying to brush those concerns under the carpet by using H1 2018 figures, rather than splitting that period into two quarters. That’s important because the crypto market has plunged massively since January impacting most crypto companies, and it is most likely to have had a toll on Bitmain as well.

The document also reveals 50 of the copyrights and patents that Bitmain has registered in China, which range from a “cryptocurrency to mining hardware system” to computing software for various cryptocurrency algorithms like Equihash, Cryptonight, and Dash.

Bitmain’s draft also confirms the company raised some $784 million across Series A, Series B and Series B rounds. Its investor roster is fairly public thanks to leaks and it includes the likes of IDG, Sequoia China, and Kaifu Lee’s Sinovation fund. However, the document does confirm that shareholders include retailer NewEgg, EDBI — the corporate investment arm of Singapore’s Economic Development Board — and Uber investor Coatue. Founders Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu are the largest shareholders and they control 36 and 20 percent, respectively.

Bitmain’s public offering could end up being the largest in history, however, as ForkLog reported earlier, observers were sending potential red flags to the investors.

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