Bitmain Is Hodling Almost $600 Million In Bitcoin Cash
When Bitmain revealed last year that it was supporting bitcoin cahs prior to bitcoin cash’s move to pursue a separation from the main BTC network as a result of conflicting difference over the blockchain scaling, the cryptocurrency mining giant invested its money where CEO Jihan Wu’s mouth was.
Disclosed documents from Bitmain’s pre-IPO investor deck indicate that, as of March 31, the China-based firms was hodling close to $1 million bitcoin cash on its balance sheet, worth almost $600 million at the present rate.
Probably more significantly, the stake indicates over 5 percent of the 17.3 million BCH presently in circulation and 12.5 percent of the 8.4 million BCH that have been transferred since the August 2017 hard fork.
Assessments are different based in how much bitcoin cash Bitmain is hodling now, close to five months following the latest data released in the investor deck. Yet, data from the bitcoin cash “rich list” demonstrates that the figure is between 664,000 and 1.33 million.
As a matter of fact, Bitmain seems to be carefully liquidating its BTC holdings even as it strengthens its stake in bitcoin cash. Bitmain had close to 22,000 bitcoins at the end of March, down from over 71,500 in December 2016. However this does not mean that Bitcoin is trading BTC directly for BCH, but it does not indicate that it is selling bitcoin to regain the expenses linked with its purchase of BCH through other means, including mining and ASIC.
Whatever the case might be, this data indicates that, at least, until recently and maybe at present, Bitmain has been supporting bitcoin cash by taking the cost of its BCH-related operations and hodling the coin despite a steep market decline.
