In what is likely the biggest acquisition in the short history of Bitcoin and Blockchain related firms, a mining equipment developer has been sold to an electronics manufacturer in China.
N.G. Zhang, the founder and CEO of Beijing-headquartered Canaan Creative CO., LTD, has confirmed on the company's website: "Yes, it is true. Canaan is being acquired by LYT." He did not offer many details on the deal with the industrial and commercial electronics manufacturer but media reports from China suggest that it was a very big one.
LYT reportedly agreed to pay about two billion yuan in stocks and 1.06 billion yuan in cash, for a total price of 3.06 billion yuan (about $466.2 million) to acquire a 100% stake in Canaan.
Vote of confidence
Founded in 2012, Canaan was the very first commercial producer of ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) for Bitcoin mining. Its latest offering, the Avalon6, offers a hashing power of 3.7THS@500MHz.
N.G. ZHANG, Canaan Founder & CEO
Mr. Zhang commented: "This deal is a vote of confidence in the three years of products and services we invented and released. This acquisition and investment provides us the necessary resources and autonomy to make even better products and innovations that our customers expect. Canaan’s expertise as an integrated circuit (IC) design company is strengthened.
These are big times for the blockchain, technology and innovation in the world...And, we are not finished! We have new products and innovations coming, deeper than integrated circuits and beyond the blockchain."
This move exemplifies how much mining hardware producers (and large scale commercial miners) are supported in China by the wider business community. In contrast, just last month Israeli Bitcoin mining equipment producer Spondoolies-Tech was shut down after it could not raise enough credit and funding to keep up with the big Chinese producers.
