Chinese mining behemoth Bitmain has filed an application for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In doing so, the company disclosed terrifying facets of its pending global takeover. First, revenue. In 2017, Bitmain pocketed in excess of $2.5 billion. This year it’s made more than $2.8 billion—around half of that has been pure profit.
The company also disclosed its substantial land investments in China and, imminently, abroad, with mining farms in four North American regions slated for 2019, as well as others in, yikes, Hong Kong, Brazil, Georgia, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore and, of course, Switzerland (probably Zug). Jesus. It’s like reading a to-do list for the Tripods in War of the Worlds.
Evidence of a more covert Global Takeover has emerged on Twitter. Pavel Matveev, chief of crypto wallet provider Wirex, posted a video in which he converts XRP, preloaded on Wirex’s crypto-to-fiat debit card, to cash via an obsequious Japanese ATM. It’s not, however, clear from the video that this is what actually takes place, so who knows really. What it looks like is a guy taking out cash from an ATM. We’ll just have to take Pavel’s word for it.
Thank God “cryptocurrency is built on benevolence,” or we’d need to start lead-lining our mothers’ basements and refitting our nerf guns with iron sights in anticipation of the imminent crypto-dystopia. Or so says Redditor ahaproudowl. Dr. Proud Owl, after surfing the Bitcoin Testnet, noticed that a user, exploiting a recently patched bug, successfully inflated simulation-bitcoin’s price by an entire 0.1 bitcoin, worth around $600 at the time of writing.
Thus Dr. Proud Owl’s proclamation: “The developer could have abused this bug for huge financial return, but chose to disclose it. If we ever need a stark reminder that cryptocurrency is built on benevolence, this is it.” Yet of course, one swallow does not a spring make. And cryptocurrency explicitly isn’t built on benevolence—it’s built on rational self-interest. Idiot.
In other Crypto Saviour news, Bakkt is Back, baby. Well not back, more just, er, reminding the oblivious world that it exists, and that it will be very, very big. Via the approved Bakkt Twitter account, the company announced that its long-hyped Bitcoin futures contracts would be “physically delivered” and would be available to purchase for dollars, pounds, and euros.
Finally, in some decidedly non-threatening news, US dairy farmers are toying with putting milk on a blockchain network run by Ripe.io, which aims to create the “blockchain of food.” Blockchain of food or “blockchain that represents data sourced from food-production supply lines”? Unless Ripe.io is literally making edible hashing algorithms, paint us skeptical.
That’s all for today folks, and remember to register as a security on the SEC so you don’t get press ganged into Bitmain’s Golden Horde.