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Xiaomi founder flatly denies any link with world’s biggest bitcoin miner

‘It is fake! So far I have not invested in bitcoin myself, nor invested in any makers of bitcoin mining machines,’ said Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Chinese smartphone giant

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Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s founder and chief executive. Photo: Simon Song

Lei Jun, the founder and chief executive of smartphone giant Xiaomi, has been quick to deny a media report suggesting he had any association with the world’s biggest maker of crypto mining machines.

Often dubbed China’s answer to Steve Jobs for his company’s stylish smartphones, Lei flatly denied a report on Quartz, a tech news website based in New York, that suggested any connection to the Beijing-based Bitmain, the world’s largest manufacturer of bitcoin-mining equipment.

“It is fake! So far I have not invested in bitcoin myself, nor invested in any makers of bitcoin mining machines,” Lei said on Monday night on his official account on Toutiao, the Beijing-based news and information content platform, which is considered China’s dominant news site with 120 million active daily users.

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Quartz had suggested a connection between Lei Jun and Bitmain was interesting because the tech billionaire had never publicly expressed an interest in cryptocurrencies

In an updated story by Quartz on Monday, Bitmain – which claims to have made about 70 per cent of the world’s bitcoin-mining rigs – confirmed that the entity linked to Lei in the leaked Paradise Papers is not a shareholder.

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Lei Jun, (left) founder and chief executive of China's smartphone maker Xiaomi, attends a signing ceremony and meeting of business leaders with US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing earlier this month. Photo: Reuters
Lei Jun, (left) founder and chief executive of China's smartphone maker Xiaomi, attends a signing ceremony and meeting of business leaders with US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing earlier this month. Photo: Reuters
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