Bitcoin Mining Chip Maker Canaan Considers U.S. IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Canaan Inc., China’s second-biggest maker of Bitcoin mining hardware, is considering listing in the U.S. after shelving plans for a Hong Kong initial public offering, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The Chinese company, which was earlier targeting to raise about $1 billion, is discussing the possibility of selling shares in New York as soon as the first half, according to the people. Deliberations are at an early stage, and there’s no certainty they will lead to a transaction, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

Canaan’s Hong Kong listing application lapsed in November. Any deal would add to the $9.1 billion that Chinese companies have raised through U.S. IPOs over the past year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Jianping Kong, Canaan’s co-chairman, declined to comment.

Bitcoin has fallen 79 percent from its record high in December 2017, making it more difficult for cryptocurrency companies to attract stock-market investors and less profitable for miners to generate new coins. Bitmain Technologies Holding Co., the largest maker of specialized mining chips for the industry, and smaller rival Ebang International Holdings Inc. also filed for Hong Kong IPOs last year.

Beijing-based Canaan, founded in 2013, sells computer equipment under the “Avalon” brand with fast customized chips that win digital coins by solving complex math problems. It reported 1.31 billion yuan ($191 million) of revenue in 2017, according to a Hong Kong exchange filing in May.

Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group AG and CMB International Capital Ltd. were joint sponsors of Canaan’s proposed Hong Kong listing, the filing shows.

--With assistance from Vinicy Chan and Blake Schmidt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Crystal Tse in Hong Kong at ctse44@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Paul Panckhurst

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