The World's Second-Largest Maker of Bitcoin Mining Rigs Seeks $1 Billion Crypto IPO

Canaan Creative, the world's second-largest makers of Bitcoin mining rigs, submitted an application yesterday to go public in Hong Kong, according to various media reports.

While the initial public offering size and timing has yet to be announced to the public, a source told Bloomberg that the public offering could raise around $1 billion and the company hopes to start trading in Hong Kong by July.

If Canaan Creative is successful, this would be the world's largest crypto-related IPO in history.

Canaan previously sought to list in China but canceled when the government began its strenuous crackdowns on Bitcoin mining operations and cryptocurrency exchanges.

Canaan is known for its mass production of chips used for Bitcoin mining, known as application-specific integrated circuits.

Jianping Kong, co-chairman of Canaan, spoke with Reuters last month and told them that the company supplies a quarter of the world's Bitcoin blockchain computing power.

The group's Cayman Islands-based parent, Canaan Inc, revealed in a filing yesterday that the group brought in 1.3 billion yuan in 2017, a 300% increase from its revenue in 2016.

Canaan sold just over 294,000 Avalon ASICs in 2017, tripling the number of chips sold the previous year.

Frost & Sullivan, a highly accredited consultant firm, forecasts that the ASIC-based hardware market will reach 28.6 billion yuan by the year 2020.Looking Ahead. As Beijing continues to tighten its control over the crypto-mining industry, Bitmain, the largest distributor of ASIC mining chips, has begun developing mining facilities abroad. It is reported, they have begun developing facilities across Europe and Canada.

"We started Canaan in 2013 and were the first to bring ASIC technology to the blockchain. Now, with our investors' support, we plan to grow the blockchain and also ship the world's first KPU, Knowledge Processing Unit, a chip dedicated to doing AI.".