[2018/07/17]Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Opens Office in Silicon Valley

[johnine]

Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Opens 20,000 Sq. Foot Office in Silicon Valley


Bitmain, the cryptocurrency industry’s most valuable company, has just opened an office in Silicon Valley ahead of its planned initial public offering (IPO) later this year.

The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that the China-based cryptocurrency mining hardware manufacturer has just moved into 20,000 square feet of office space in downtown San Jose, CA, filling the last vacancy in the city’s Riverpark Towers office building, which has become a hub for tech startups including Okta, Cohesity, and WeWork.

Bitmain’s expansion into Silicon Valley is not entirely surprising. The firm is now valued at $12 billion following the conclusion of last month’s $400 million funding round, making it not only the most valuable cryptocurrency company but also one of the world’s most valuable privately-held tech startups. According to reports, the firm believes it could achieve a valuation as high as $40 billion after going public in the near future.

And though decentralization may be the mantra of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, companies in the industry have still tended to center themselves around the same geographic locations as the wider tech industry.

In this case, though, the expansion may be designed to help Bitmain better manage its burgeoning digital empire. The company has been making a targeted expansion into North America, in part due to the industry’s uncertain future in China, opening mining centers in both Washington state and Quebec.

Bitmain has also begun making major investments in other tech startups, and a move into Silicon Valley would naturally benefit the firm’s VC arm.

As CCN reported earlier this year, Bitmain led a $110 million funding round for cryptocurrency startup Circle, which operates a cryptocurrency trading desk, exchange, and investing app. The company is also planning to create a USD-pegged “stablecoin.”

More recently, Bitmain invested $50 million in the Opera web browser, obtaining a controlling stake in the company. Though niche in Western markets, Opera is widely used in Africa, and the Norwegian firm had also acquired several mobile money platforms based on the continent. Shortly after Bitmain invested in Opera, the company announced that it would integrate a native Ethereum wallet into its web browser.

Just this week, Bitmain, along with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, headlined a funding round for blockchain startup Block.one, the creator of the EOS cryptocurrency. The size of the funding round was not announced publicly.


Source: https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-mining-giant-bitmain-opens-20000-sq-foot-office-in-silicon-valley/

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[Carlton Banks]

Lol, Bitmain must be struggling to find ways to make use of all it's money, this is a good problem This is a good indicator that their period of domination will end soon; arriving in Silicon Valley is just a massive heads up to the rest of Silicon Valley that Bitmain is doing good business, and that's in a very open market that can be easily disrupted. Bitmain probably think they might be able to make use of the US tech ecosystem to get even further ahead, but that's a 2 way street. Nice move Jihan

[cryptosfr]

And  Bitmain  gonna  be  moar and moar  bigger ..... worrying  me

[snipie]

Bitmain is not only expanding its work to North America but also it try to prevent any loss that could be done to its capital in case Chinese government decided to ban everything related to mining and cryptocurrency in general.

[richardsNY]

And  Bitmain  gonna  be  moar and moar  bigger ..... worrying  me

Coinbase can be just as bad due to their size. Bitmain has had a major advantage over anything else in this industry, and that for years straight. Eventually their position in this industry will shrink due to more players entering this space. If I browse through Jihan Wu's Tweets, he is definitely a bcash supporter, obviously, but in a normal way actually. He Tweeted to someone stating BCH is Bitcoin that BCH is BCH, which is quite interesting. Roger would directly agree with that person that BCH is indeed Bitcoin. He also pinned a Tweet where he doesn't like what the bcash community is doing. Trash talk between coins happens all the time, and I don't see anything wrong with that, so Jihan definitely knows how to stay within what's relatively reasonable.

[TraderTimm]

Lol, Bitmain must be struggling to find ways to make use of all it's money, this is a good problem This is a good indicator that their period of domination will end soon; arriving in Silicon Valley is just a massive heads up to the rest of Silicon Valley that Bitmain is doing good business, and that's in a very open market that can be easily disrupted. Bitmain probably think they might be able to make use of the US tech ecosystem to get even further ahead, but that's a 2 way street. Nice move Jihan

Correct.

All this does is signal to everyone in the space that they're making money - so please come and compete. And they will. The other side to this is Bitmain unwittingly becomes beholden to Bitcoin in general. If they try any shennanigans, it wouldn't be too hard to get consensus to turn all of their ASICs into hot-air popcorn poppers within a few days. Imagine having to explain to investors why being a complete douchebag cost you your main source of revenue.

They may think they hold the cards, but they don't -- the users do.

I also welcome any other major firm to get involved, and from what I've been reading - I wouldn't be surprised if one of the big fab/foundry owners look at this as a new product revenue stream. The amounts being made are ridiculous.

[1Referee]

If I browse through Jihan Wu's Tweets, he is definitely a bcash supporter, obviously, but in a normal way actually. He Tweeted to someone stating BCH is Bitcoin that BCH is BCH, which is quite interesting. Roger would directly agree with that person that BCH is indeed Bitcoin. He also pinned a Tweet where he doesn't like what the bcash community is doing. Trash talk between coins happens all the time, and I don't see anything wrong with that, so Jihan definitely knows how to stay within what's relatively reasonable.

Don't believe any of that. The only reason Jihan is relatively calm is because his sockpuppet Roger is doing the dirty work for him.

The underlying factor is that Jihan has a multi billion dollar business to protect, and for that reason can't do much trash talking himself, which otherwise would harm Bitmain.

There is nothing genuine about Jihan and he's definitely not interested in an even playing field for all coins. I can't wait for other manufacturers to catch up on Bitmain to dethrone them, or at least make them less of a big deal. Competition is healthy and leads to more overall freedom in the market and better tech.