Bitmain, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining hardware producer, has acquired Blocktrail, a developer of a multi-platform bitcoin Wallet, API, and Block explorer. The Beijing-based mining giant aims to not only merge Blocktrail’s platform into BTC.com, its bitcoin block explorer service, but also utilize Blocktrail’s talent, which has joined Bitmain as part of the deal.
Blocktrail was founded in 2014 with €500,000 funding from BlockCorp, which was set up by Lev Leviev, co-founder of VKontakte (a Russian social network), and Blocktrail CEO Boaz Bechar. It provides consumers and developers with tools to interface with the Blockchain , through its bitcoin wallet, its developers’ platform, and its online block explorer which provides users with online information about cryptocurrency transactions.
“Bitmain is the world’s leading company in the bitcoin space. Joining forces with Bitmain will not only benefit both our companies, but also all our present and future customers”, says Blocktrail’s CEO Boaz Bechar.
Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain, added: ”Blocktrail’s products, services and team are highly valuable to us. We hope to utilize this acquisition to continue to offer better services and products to BTC.com’s customers worldwide”.
Blocktrail’s wallet is decentralized, which means that users are able to maintain full control over their private keys, rather than trusting in a centralized wallet service to secure it. This way the firm promises clients can’t be locked out by the service provider or any other authority. Despite the ownership change, Blocktrail’s platform and services are said to continue to operate with both wallet and API users unaffected by any changes.
