Japan's GMO Plans to Sell 7nm Bitcoin Mining Boards Using Token Sale

Japanese internet giant GMO has announced a plan to sell its “next-generation mining boards,” equipped with 7nm ASIC chips through an initial coin offering (ICO) next year.

Also read: GMO to Invest 10 Billion Yen in Its Own 7nm, 5nm, and 3.5nm Dedicated Bitcoin Chips

GMO Planning ICO

Japanese conglomerate GMO Internet announced on Wednesday that its bitcoin mining business will launch an initial coin offering (ICO) next year. The purpose of the token sale is “to sell next-generation mining boards,” the company wrote, stating that:

We will issue tokens as a method to buy next-generation mining boards.

Japan currently has no specific law for regulating ICOs. However, some existing laws may apply to token sales. For example, some of them may be classified as sales of securities and subject to the current securities laws.

“We will consider properly the laws and regulations that are applicable to us under the current legislation including Payment Services Act and the Financial Instrument and Exchange Act,” GMO stated in its announcement. “And [we] will be conscious of the protection of token purchasers and stakeholders’ profits when designing the token sale.”

At the end of September, GMO’s bitcoin exchange subsidiary, GMO Coin, became one of the first eleven bitcoin exchanges to be granted registration by the Financial Services Agency (FSA).

GMO’s Bitcoin Mining Business

GMO is currently developing the 7nm ASIC chip in collaboration with a partner that has semiconductor design technology. The project was first unveiled in September. According to Masatoshi Kumagai, GMO Group president, the company plans to invest 10 billion yen in the next few years on its mining operation as well as the research and development for 7nm, 5nm, and 3.5nm mining chips.

In addition to operating a mining center in Northern Europe, the company will also launch a cloud mining business as well as sell its mining boards equipped with the 7nm mining chips. “Each card will be able to mine at a projected 8 terahashes per second or more with a power consumption of only 300 watts,” Kumagai detailed.

“It will be possible to reduce power consumption compared to the existing mining machines with the same performance, and achieve a computational performance of 10TH/s per chip,” GMO detailed on Wednesday, adding that:

We will launch the mining based on ready-made mining computers by December 31, 2017, which will lead to the full-scale entry into the bitcoin mining business.

“After the launch of the bitcoin mining business, we will also sell our own next-generation mining boards,” GMO’s announcement reiterated.

What do you think of GMO using an ICO to sell its 7nm chip mining boards? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of GMO.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.