Cryptocurrency–Just days after Softbank, one of the largest investors in Uber, denied putting money into cryptocurrency mining conglomerate Bitmain’s IPO, another company has come forth to put to rest rumors related to participation in the IPO. DST Global, an investment fund which focuses on late-stage, global ventures, has said in a written statement to CoinTelegraph that it has not been a participant in Bitmain’s $400 million funding round that occurred earlier in the year, despite reports saying otherwise.
CoinTelegraph reports receiving an anonymous tip today claiming that the investment firm had steered clear of Bitmain’s IPO, with managing partner at DST Global John Lindfors later confirming the rumor, writing in an email,
“I can confirm that DST has never invested in Bitmain.”
The bizarre twist over Bitmain IPO partnership comes just days after Cointelegraph was able to confirm reports that Softbank, a high profile investment firm that has made headlines as the largest investor in Uber, had also refrained from putting money into Bitmain’s IPO. Like DST Global, the rumor mill had proposed that Softbank was participating in cryptocurrency’s large profile IPO via Bitmain, which was confirmed to be not true following the release of a statement from Softbank, saying on August 18,
“Neither the SoftBank Group Corp. nor the SoftBank Vision Fund were in any way involved in the deal.”
In addition to the aforementioned denials, Chinese multinational investment holding Tencent has come forth to dispel any rumors related to its connection with the Bitmain IPO. Tencent, which holds the distinction of being China’s largest tech entity by market capitalization, told a Hong Kong news outlet that
“the company did not take part in the investment of Bitmain Technologies.”
While the series of investment banks and firms backing out of a rumored partnership with Bitmain is concerning, the IPO has already stumbled into controversy related to the crypto mining firm’s massive holding of Bitcoin Cash. Despite most of cryptocurrency seeing a large decline in value throughout 2018 (particularly the classification of altcoins), Bitcoin Cash has experienced an 87 percent decline in price from it’s all-time high of $4300 on December 20, 2017. In addition, Q2 sales for Bitmain were reportedly disappointing, falling in line with the rest of the crypto market decline throughout the year.
Leaked documents from the pre-ICO show that Bitmain is sitting on $600 million worth of Bitcoin Cash–a risky proposition in the current market, but one that could prove fortuitous if the price of BCH makes a turn back towards the bullish. Some even view the massive holding of BCH as an indication that Bitmain is supporting the hard fork of Bitcoin fully, and preparing to back the investment with action that further promotes the price of BCH,
BITMAIN holding 1M+ BCH is a very powerful statement that they have skin in the game and put their money where their mouth is. It’s a good and calculated move, and it’s not wise to underestimate them.
— Cøbra (@CobraBitcoin) August 13, 2018
However, other investors have described the proposition of a Bitmain IPO as risky in the current market conditions. Popular crypto Twitter pundit WhalePanda put his concerns over Bitmain’s IPO in a specific light,
“They purposely didn’t include the Q2 numbers for Pre-IPO buyers since they were a disaster… They told Pre-IPO buyers they would use some of the money to buy more BCH.”
