Bitmain Technologies, a Chinese cryptocurrency company, confirmed on Thursday that it intends to go public in Hong Kong. It’s a big test of whether stock investors want to jump aboard the crypto bandwagon, despite the volatility of digital currencies.
Back story: Bitmain is one of the world’s biggest sellers of equipment used to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. (A brief explainer: New digital currency tokens are created by computers solving complex equations.) Citing data from the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, Bitmain claimed in a regulatory filing to control nearly 75 percent of the world’s crypto-mining hardware market.
Bitmain’s big break: Soaring interest in cryptocurrencies last year lifted the company’s revenue to $2.5 billion, from $137.3 million in 2015, according to its regulatory filing. Its profit hit $701 million in 2017, up from $38.6 million in 2015. That growth alone is likely to draw interest from investors.
