TL;DR: “Ebang International Holdings, which makes equipment for cryptocurrency mining in China, filed on Friday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering,” IPO company Renaissance Capital announced. So far, taking bitcoin mining-related companies public in the United States has not gone well.



China Bitcoin Mining Chip Maker Files $100 Million IPO

Ebang International “designs application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips and fabless integrated circuits (IC) for Bitcoin mining machines (82% of 2019 revenue),” Renaissance Capital continued. Ebang is based in Zhejiang, China, and cited Frost & Sullivan as claiming the chip maker to be “a leading Bitcoin mining machine producer in the global market in 2019 by computing power,” though its since fallen on much harder times financially.

Ebang’s IPO hopes rest on bringing its listing to the Big Board, the New York Stock Exchange (which is owned by ICE, the parent company for physically-settled bitcoin futures company, Bakkt) or Nasdaq, the preeminent tech-trading market. The company apparently “filed confidentially on February 14, 2020,” Renaissance also revealed.

The more-than 180 page F1 filling with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was signed on April 24, 2020, however. In it, Ebang insisted its IPO would leverage the company’s “deep understanding of the cryptocurrency industry and strong blockchain technology as applied to ASIC chip design, we strive to expand into the upstream and downstream markets of the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry value chain to diversify our offerings and achieve a more stable financial performance. We intend to start with the cryptocurrency mining and farming business and explore applying blockchain technology into non-cryptocurrency industries, such as the financial services and healthcare industries.”

Another Try, This Time Much Less Ambitious

Ebang did disclose recent revenue swings in the SEC filing. “We had revenues of US$319.0 million and US$109.1 million in 2018 and 2019, respectively. We had gross profit of US$24.4 million in 2018 and gross loss of US$30.6 million in 2019. We had net losses of US$11.8 million and US$41.1 million in 2018 and 2019, respectively.”

It’s actually the second IPO attempt for Ebang. They gave it a whirl back in summer of 2018 with what analysts would assume would be an easier sell, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Then, Ebang’s ambitions were quite a bit bigger, to the tune of a $1 billion IPO, but were soon dashed along with rivals such as Bitmain during an extended crypto bear market.

China-based mining companies have had some success in persuading US regulators. In October of 2019, for example, Canaan was able to climb aboard Nasdaq, hoping to raise $400 million at the time, beating out Bitmain to the coveted American market punch. Weeks later, however, Canaan was forced to revise numbers down, down, down by $300 million, in fact, finally settling on a $90 million debut. Canaan was also eventually sued over those IPO numbers, and has had a rough go of it since trading began.

CONTINUE THE SPICE and check out our piping hot VIDEOS. Our podcast, The CoinSpice Podcast, has amazing guests. Follow CoinSpice on Twitter. Join our Telegram feed to make sure you never miss a post. Drop some BCH at the merch shop — we’ve got some spicy shirts for men and women. Don’t forget to help spread the word about CoinSpice on social media.

DYOR: CoinSpice is your home for just spicy crypto things. We’re not affiliated with any cryptocurrency project or token. Each published piece is intended for information purposes only, not investment advice and not in the hope of impacting speculative markets. There are plenty of trading sites and coin-specific advocacy journals out there, we’re neither. CoinSpice strives for rigorous accuracy in our reporting. Information presented here is contingent usually on a host of factors, and the ecosystem moves fast — prices change, projects change, and at warp speed. Do your own research.

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.