On January 29 the longstanding Chinese bitcoin company BTCC has announced it was acquired by a Hong Kong-based investment fund. The company explains its pivoting away from China so the business can grow more “aggressively” in 2018.
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A Hong Kong Investment Fund Acquires BTCC
The company BTCC formally known as BTC China was founded in 2011 by the entrepreneur Bobby Lee, and it was China’s first domestic bitcoin exchange. In 2014 the exchange held the world second largest bitcoin trade volume among all the trading platforms worldwide that year. However, at the beginning of 2017, the country’s central bank stopped mainland exchanges from trading cryptocurrencies with the national tender the renminbi. Most exchanges then re-positioned themselves internationally in other areas where the political climate is more friendly towards digital assets. Now BTCC is being acquired by an unnamed Hong Kong investment fund which intends to expand the company to all seven continents.
“Today’s acquisition is an incredible milestone for BTCC that validates all of our hard work over the past few years,” Bobby Lee, the co-founder of BTCC said in a press release sent to news.Bitcoin.com.
I’m very excited about the resources this gives BTCC to move faster and aggressively grow our businesses in 2018 and beyond. This will give us impetus to lead every segment of the digital currency ecosystem, including the pool, payments, and exchange businesses.
BTCC Will Focus On International Expansion
According to the company, the business will focus all its attention on its international markets, and its three products including the BTCC mining pool, Mobi, and its USD Exchange. The trading platform will be operated by Aaron Choi, Mark Ma, and Denver Zhao. BTCC details that Ma has a strong background with the firm Alibaba and other fintech companies, and they expect the executive to push their products globally.
“Mobi, the global multi-currency wallet that we introduced in March 2017, now has customers from over 180+ countries,” Ma, the vice president of BTCC Mobi said in a statement.
The capital injection we received today gives us a boost towards reaching our goal to grab a dominant market share in the payments and digital currency industries of each of those countries.
The move marks the last of the top mainland exchanges in China to re-position themselves in more friendlier territories. The other leading Chinese exchanges Huobi, and Okcoin have already moved abroad. BTCC’s business also has a mining pool which captures 3.6 percent of the bitcoin core network’s hashrate at the time of plublication.
“We’re humbled that we were able to acquire BTCC — the company has an unparalleled brand and reputation, and we look forward to taking it greater heights of success internationally,” Calvin Cheng, a former Singaporean parliamentarian, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader who advises the Hong Kong blockchain investment fund, told news.Bitcoin.com.
What do you think about the Hong Kong investment fund acquiring BTCC? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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