Chinese bitcoin mining giant Bitmain had revenues of $2.8 billion in the first half of the year
- Chinese crypto mining company Bitmain has filed IPO documents with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
- The preliminary documents show Bitmain had revenues of $2.8 billion in the first half of 2018.
- First half revenues are more than Bitmain's entire 2017 revenues and come despite a slump in the crypto market.
Crypto mining giant Bitmain made more revenues in the first six months of the year than it did in the entire 2017 - despite the slump in crypto prices and activity in 2018.
Bitmain, which makes and runs crypto mining software, filed a preliminary IPO prospectus with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
In it, the Chinese company discloses that it had revenues of $2.8 billion in the six months to June 2018. That was up from revenues of $2.5 billion across the whole of 2017 and revenues of $137.3 million in 2015. 94% of sales came from mining hardware sales. It sold hardware to over 80,000 individuals and companies in the first half of the year.
Bitmain had profits of $701.4 million in 2017 and $83 million in the first six months of the year, the prospectus shows.
The jump in revenues so far this years comes despite a slump in cryptocurrency prices and activity since the start of the year. The global cryptocurrency market has collapsed by almost 75% since its peak in December.
Bitmain's prospectus claims it has a 74.5% share of the global crypto mining hardware market, according to business consultancy Frost & Sullivan.
The company also operates 11 mining farms across China and operates the world's two biggest mining pools, BTC.com and Antpool.
Bitmain says it is now looking to expand into developing microchips for artificial intelligence.
The prospectus is an early draft and does not include any guide to how much Bitmain will be valued at in any eventual listing. Crypto industry website CoinDesk reports that Bitmain could look to raise as much as $18 billion in a listing and be valued at as much as $50 billion.