In today’s edition of Bitcoin in Brief we cover how Bitmain’s valuation reached $12 billion, the opening of a new US-based crypto exchange, and Binance’s decision to donate $1 million to flood victims in Japan. Additionally, we explore what parts of the current crypto ecosystem Vitalik Buterin hates.
Bitmain Valued at $12 Billion
Bitmain Technologies Ltd., the Beijing-headquartered bitcoin mining machines (ASIC chips) producer, has raised up to $400 million in its latest fundraising round, valuing the company at $12 billion, Chinese media outlet Caixin has reported. The company’s B round of fundraising was led by the venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Sequoia Capital, along with the New York based tech sector hedge fund Coatue, and EDBI Pte Ltd., the private equity and venture capital arm of Singapore Economic Development Board, according to sources close to the deal. Based on this new valuation, Bitmain might seek a massive initial pubic offering (IPO) on the stock market in Hong Kong in the future.
New US Exchange Opens
The American crypto trading market is getting a little bit more competitive with a new exchange opening. HBUS, a strategic partner of Huobi, has begun accepting new user registrations by U.S. residents on July 6th. Users are able to deposit BTC, BCH, ETH, ETC, LTC, USDT, CVC, DASH and TUSD. The actual marketplace will go live tomorrow, July 10th, when users will be able to trade and withdraw funds. The launch is not nationwide yet as HBUS does not currently serve residents in Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, Hawaii, Vermont, and Washington.
“Our strategic partner, Huobi, has grown to be the largest digital asset marketplace globally. As investors‘ acceptance of virtual currency and digital asset increases, we have seen incredibly high demand in the U.S. We are excited to launch as Huobi’s strategic partner, to serve the growing number of people participating in virtual currency trading,” commented Frank Fu, CEO of HBUS.
Huobi has been expanding globally for a while and most recently launched AUD trading in Australia.
Binance Donates $1M
The leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which expects to make a net profit of up to $1 billion this year, has announced it donated $1 million to Japanese flood victims. The company stated that “To help out the victims in West Japan that were affected by the heavy rains on 7/7/2018, Binance is donating $1,000,000 USD and calling for our crypto friends and partners to join us in the relief initiative.” According to Japanese agencies in the field, the death toll in the western part of the country reached 112 on Monday and many more people are still missing after floods and landslides destroyed homes, disabled infrastructure and sent around 23,000 people fleeing to evacuation centers.
Similar natural disasters have been on the mind of the Bitcoin community recently with floods in southern China affecting many miners.
Vitalik Hates Centralized Exchanges
Vitalik Buterin has recently expressed a deep hatred for the particular business model at the heart of the current crypto trading ecosystem. “I definitely hope centralized exchanges go burn in hell as much as possible,” he said. A particular issue the Ethereum founder raised was how the centralized platforms can extract up to $15 million from projects that want to list their ICO tokens. According to Buterin, crypto-only exchanges are preferable to venues which offer fiat pairs as “the fiat world only has centralized gateways.” And he also seems to not be a big fan of Bitmain and its growing power. “Back in 2013, when GHash had 51 percent everybody freaked out. It’s happening a second time and people aren’t really talking about it this much,” Buterin said at a Techcrunch event.
OTCXN Live Test
OTC Exchange Network, Inc. (OTCXN), an institutional finance infrastructure company, has completed its first live test trades of tokenized USD and tokenized Bitcoin between two separate trading accounts over an electronic trading platform with assets held at a neutral custodian. The platform is designed to remove counterparty and settlement risk with an atomic exchange of assets and facilitates settlement of transactions instantly. “We believe that OTCXN’s platform will transform the marketplace, by enabling assured and transparent execution, becoming a trusted cornerstone driving the maturation of the fiat and crypto markets,” said Barry Thompson, Managing Partner of Volantis Escrow which served as the custodian. “We’ve received dozens of inquiries from trading firms and custodians about our launch date. I’m thrilled that our live test trades were a success and that we’ll soon bring our solution to the market,“ added Rosario M. Ingargiola, founder and CEO of OTCXN. The company plans to launch the public beta on July 9, 2018.
What do you think about today’s news tidbits? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.