China’s largest bitcoin miner ramps up VC funding by investing in Hong Kong blockchain start-up
The deal marks the latest investment made by Bitmain, which is also the world’s biggest supplier of cryptocurrency mining equipment, in the red-hot blockchain sector
Bitmain Technologies, China’s largest bitcoin miner, has ratcheted up its venture capital activity by investing in the Hong Kong-based software company behind the EOSIO open-source blockchain protocol.
The investment made by Bitmain, which is also the world’s biggest supplier of cryptocurrency mining equipment, was part of the latest funding round completed by Block.one, according to a statement released by the blockchain start-up on Tuesday.
The amount of financing raised by Block.one from its new investors, which included PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, was not disclosed. The fundraising was first reported by Bloomberg.
The start-up’s EOSIO blockchain protocol, which was introduced in May last year, was designed to enable secure data transfer and support high-performance decentralised applications, including cloud storage and authentication. This platform also supports Block.one’s own cryptocurrency, EOS, that has been widely speculated as a challenger to ethereum.
“The EOSIO protocol is a great example of blockchain innovation,” said Bitmain co-founder and co-chief executive Wu Jihan, aged 32, in the statement from Block.one. “Its performance and scalability can meet the needs of demanding consumer applications and will pave the way for mainstream blockchain adoption.”