Davis Polk & Wardwell and Commerce & Finance Law Offices are acting for Chinese cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain Technologies on its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO), with Clifford Chance and CM Law Firm advising the sponsors.
Headquartered in Beijing, Bitmain is the world's largest designer of ASIC chips for Bitcoin mining. The firm also designs different microchips for artificial intelligence applications, as well as manufacturing cryptocurrency and AI hardware, and managing crypto mining farms.
Bitmain is likely to use the proceeds of the IPO to invest in research and development and expand its production output.
According to Reuters, Bitmain’s prospectus, investors’ first official look at its financial health revealed that it made a profit of $742 million for the first six months of this year. The bulk of the company’s revenue came from selling hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, the filing said.
The price of bitcoin has fallen 65 percent since its December 2017 peak. This fall has hurt the profitability of mining, and in turn has been weighing on sales of mining hardware, added Reuters.
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