Bitcoin Group is a multinational bitcoin mining company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. The company was founded during 2014 as a result of a partnership between Sam Lee, Allan Guo and Ryan Xu. The company announced that it would pursue an initial public offering (IPO) on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in October 2014, however it was delayed due to two stop orders from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Bitcoin Group is currently in the process of making a third attempt to list on the ASX through an IPO, it is expected to occur in January 2016 due to ASIC's request for an Independent Expert Report. The company maintains it is the first digital currency company in the world to IPO as it has avoided going through so-called 'backdoor listings' that have been undertaken by other listed digital currency companies.
Contents
Current
Bitcoin Group’s Mining operation generates 6.2 petahashes, which is approximately 1.57% of the Global Hash Power. Bitcoin Group has a total of seven bitcoin Mining locations across the globe. The majority of Bitcoin group’s Hash Power is generated in China, with less than 2% being generated in Australia and Iceland.
Future Plans
Bitcoin Group plans to focus their investments on their current operations by maintaining and expanding their Hash Power levels through the acquisition of additional mining equipment and Hash Power providers. In the longer term, they wish to acquire smaller bitcoin miners.
Listing Details
Bitcoin Group plans to issue 100 million new shares to raise $20 million at 20¢ a share and a market capitalisation of $32.9 million based on 164,870,930 shares on completion of the offer. It has been stated in the company’s prospectus that $18 million of the funds raised from its market listing will be invested into bitcoin mining equipment and facilities.
On the 25th of January, Bitcoin Group closed their offer, announcing to the market that the company has successfully raised $5.9 million Australian dollars.
Regulatory Involvement
Bitcoin Group made a submission to the Australian Senate’s Economics References Committee for their 2015 inquiry into digital currencies. The submission advised the committee that while the company did not agree with the ruling on the GST treatment of digital currencies by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), its ambitions would have been more difficult to realize without the regulatory clarity that it provided.