Bitmain and Peter Thiel Lead Investment Round for EOS Developer Block.one 🚨 This article is 6 years old...
Bitmain and Peter Thiel Lead Investment Round for EOS Developer Block.one
2 min read
Updated: Nov. 7, 2019 at 2:27 am UTC
Photo by Dan Schiumarini on Unsplash
The fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, EOS raised a record-breaking $4 billion in its year-long ICO that ended May 2018. Announced on July 16, EOS developer Block.one closed a new fundraising round led by PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Chinese chipmaker Bitmain.
Strategic Investment Round
In a public announcement, Block.one revealed its newest fundraising round led by billionaires Peter Thiel and Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu. Adding to the cohort of notable investors, Louis Bacon of Moore Capital and Allen Howard of Brevan Howard also made contributions to the company behind the EOSIO software.
The total amount of funds raised by Block.one is yet to be disclosed.
An early investor in Facebook, Airbnb, and SpaceX, Thiel is a self-proclaimed Bitcoin bull who reportedly invested $20 million in Bitcoin through his venture capital firm, Founders Fund in January 2018.
Most recently, Thiel joined Coinbase in backing the new Reserve stablecoin.
Jihan Wu is CEO of the world’s largest manufacturer of cryptocurrency mining hardware, Bitmain which is also considered to be the largest blockchain business by market cap at nearly $12 billion.
Bitmain is also the owner of Bitcoin mining pools BTC.com and AntPool, which reportedly control over 50% of Bitcoin’s total mining power.
In the official press release by Block.one, Wu stated:
“The EOSIO protocol is a great example of blockchain innovation. Its performance and scalability can meet the needs of demanding consumer applications and will pave the way for mainstream blockchain adoption.”
The recent investments made by Thiel and Wu follow an earlier fundraising round led by Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz and Christian Angermayer of Lansdowne Investment Company Ltd.
Expressing enthusiasm for their new addition of partners, Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer said:
“As Block.one prepares to announce its future plans, we’re excited to welcome key strategic investors aligned with our values of creating a more secure and connected world.”
Block.one’s Future Plans
Prior to their $4 billion ICO, Block.one already invested hundreds of millions of dollars into joint ventures with FinLab AG and private blockchain investors to “accelerate [the] development of EOSIO projects” and ecosystems worldwide.
In addition, EOS invested over $1 billion USD in startups developing applications on the Dawn 3.0 smart contract platform.
What Block.one has planned for the new investment round is still unknown.
Earlier in July, Block.one also announced that former Jefferies Asia CEO Mike Alexander joined as CEO of EOS’ $1 billion venture capital branch and CFO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia Rob Jesudason was appointed as company Group President.
