Breaking: 500.com Acquires Third-Largest Mining Pool BTC.com From Bitmain

500.com, a former Chinese lottery website that turned into a mining business announced the acquisition of BTC.com’s mining pool from Bitmain in a share exchange offer. The offer saw Bitmain acquire 10% of 500.com’s current 44,353,435 Class A ordinary shares of par value US$0.00005 per share.

BTC.com was ranked third in terms of hash rate input to the Bitcoin mining ecosystem at the time of acquisition. The mining pool at one point also held the top spot for offering the highest hash rate during Bitmain’s peak years.

BTC.com is a complete bitcoin-mining solution provider where users can enroll themselves in one of their mining pools and manage their mining business using their app and website. BTC.com Pool is a multi-currency integrated mining pool established in 2016 that has a hash rate of around 17 EH/s and supports various cryptocurrencies, including BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC.

Bitmain Rise and Fall in the Mining Industry

Bitmain was once the leader of the Bitcoin mining industry with its revenue hitting a billion marks during the peak of the 2017 bull run. The company led by Jihan Wu was once seen as the next big unicorn company to rise from the crypto industry, saw a similar downfall initiated by the 2018 bear market along with some bad investments that led to disagreements between the co-founder and other board members.

The firm made Wu to forcible resign from the company back in 2019, however, Wu returned and tried to ouster the then CEO and co-founder Zhen from the company. Bitmain saga finally saw an end last month when Jihan Wu finally stepped down from the board in a nearly 2 year long-drawn battle between the company and its founder with a $600 million settlement. The selling of BTC.com to 500.com marks quite a downfall of once the leader in the mining industry.