Lionel Laurent, Columnist

A $40 Billion Plan to Cash Out Of Bitcoin

A rumored IPO of the world’s biggest crypto-miner might end up as a play on advanced AI chips.

August 14, 2018 at 4:00 AM UTC

Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist writing about the future of money and the future of Europe. Previously, he was a reporter for Reuters and Forbes.

Bitmain has the Bitcoin market cornered, and now it might want to cash out. — Bitmain has the Bitcoin market cornered, and now it might want to cash out.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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The 1980s cyberpunk novels that predicted today’s internet failed to conceive of anything as outlandish or contradictory as Bitcoin: A digital currency that’s spent nowhere, a commodity that’s used for nothing, and a libertarian dream that’s effectively run by elites.

Now, after its 66-percent price drop from December highs, comes yet another fantastical plot twist. The Chinese company that makes most of the world’s Bitcoin-mining rigs — as well as a big pile of mining and crypto-trading profit — is thinking about a stock-market listing. The proceeds would be used to develop the kind of sophisticated hardware that would let it compete head-on with tech giants like Google in areas way beyond Bitcoin.