Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent has reportedly denied any investment in pre-Initial Public Offering (IPO) financing for Bitmain Technologies – the world’s largest producer of cryptocurrency mining hardware.

Widely covered by both crypto and mainstream media on August 10th, reports surfaced in Chinese media that both Tencent and Japanese conglomerate Softbank Group had closed a $1 billion funding round with Bitmain – ahead of a reported $15 billion IPO.

With the valuation in advance of the IPO possibly as high as $18 billion – a figure which would put it above the likes of Facebook as one of the largest IPOs in history – it seemed unsurprising that the company was courting such high-profile investors.

In a somewhat familiar twist for the crypto world however, a representative for Softbank Group last week denied that they were “in any way involved in the deal.”

While Tencent at the time made no comment with respect to their involvement, now it seems that the conglomerate has joined Softbank in denying the rumours.

According to AAstocks.com, a Hong-Kong based financial information and analytics portal, Tencent have:

following SoftBank, denies joining the fresh round financing of Bitmain Technologies, a crypto-currency mining chip maker in Mainland China.

Although Tencent have yet to officially confirm the reports, it seems that crypto-Twitter has been quick to react to the news:

With Bitmain under heavy scrutiny ahead of its IPO, and bitcoin’s price struggling to climb out of its bearish phase, institutional and retail investors alike will pay close attention to the story as it unfolds.