The acquisition of mining equipment maker Bee Computing comes amid the lottery-turned-crypto-mining firm’s shopping spree.
Chinese online lottery company 500.com (NYSE: WBAI) has acquired Bee Computing, a Hong Kong-registered maker of Bitcoin mining machines, for $100 million, according to an filing Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
500.com, which changed its name to BIT Mining Limited in March, has been quietly shifting its focus from its struggling online lottery business to 比特币 (BTC, -1.78%)
It is now one of the few large-scale companies in the crypto-mining business after acquiring the third-largest mining pool, BTC.com, and three mining farms under its Loto Interactive unit. The company is venturing into the business of making mining machines with the latest deal, which comes at a time when mining companies are in short supply of those machines.
Chinese online lottery company 500.com (NYSE: WBAI) has acquired Bee Computing, a Hong Kong-registered maker of Bitcoin mining machines, for $100 million, according to an filing Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
500.com, which changed its name to BIT Mining Limited in March, has been quietly shifting its focus from its struggling online lottery business to 比特币 (BTC, -1.78%)
It is now one of the few large-scale companies in the crypto-mining business after acquiring the third-largest mining pool, BTC.com, and three mining farms under its Loto Interactive unit. The company is venturing into the business of making mining machines with the latest deal, which comes at a time when mining companies are in short supply of those machines.
According to the purchase agreement, BIT Mining will pay Bee Computing $35 million in stock by the end of the second quarter this year and send the other $65 million worth of stock after the acquired company manages to produce a certain number of 7nm ASIC bitcoin mining machines as well as make higher performance bitcoin, ethereum and 莱特币 (LTC, +8.16%)
BIT Mining officially announced its strategic shift to bitcoin mining in December. In February, the company bought the crypto mining mining pool business, BTC.com, from Bitdeer Technologies, which was majority owned by Bitmain’s former chief executive Jihan Wu. It has purchased at least $14 million in mining machines in an all-equity deal.
Combined with the existing mining pool services provided by BIT Mining’s subsidiary Loto Interactive, the company would be one of the largest mining pools in the world, according to data from BTC.com.
Loto Interactive has three big data centers in the crypto mining hub Sichuan province in central China because of Sichuan’s rich hydropower in the summer. Loto Interactive previously only provided venues and maintenance services, rather than buying mining machines and profiting from mining cryptocurrencies. The company has started running its own miners early this year.
If a company only operates a mining site for miners to make a profit, it does not have much exposure to crypto’s prices, It would face more price-related risks and could stand to profit more if it starts to buy mining machines and run them in its own mining sites.
Tsinghua Unigroup is BIT Mining’s holding shareholder, but it remains unclear how the Chinese semiconductor conglomerate is involved in the company’s businesses.
