Following in the footsteps of Tesla, Chinese language app maker Meitu has joined the ranks of cryptocurrency funding.
Within the early 2010s, Meitu reached such dominance within the portrait touch-up house that its eponymous flagship app turned a verb for “photograph beautifying” in China. However in recent times, as smartphones turned to supply built-in filters, photograph editors like Meitu are struggling to carry their lead. Meitu’s inventory shrank from HK$18 apiece in 2017 to lower than HK$3 at the moment.
As the corporate turns 13 years previous and seeks different development, it units its eyes on cryptocurrency.
Meitu bought 15,000 items of Ether and 379.1214267 items of Bitcoin price round $22.1 million and $17.9 million respectively on March 5 in open market transactions, the corporate disclosed Sunday. The acquisition is the primary tranche of the agency’s funding plan to purchase as much as $100 million price of cryptocurrency, which is financed by its money reserves.
In current occasions, Meitu chairman Cai Wensheng has been an outspoken advocate of blockchain technologies. Although China has banned preliminary coin choices and crypto buying and selling exchanges, Cai stated in 2018 that he personally bought about 10,000 bitcoins.
His assist for cryptocurrencies is manifested in Meitu’s newest funding transfer. Within the disclosure, the corporate states:
“The Board takes the view that blockchain know-how has the potential to disrupt each present monetary and know-how industries, much like the style by which cellular web has disrupted the PC web and lots of different offline industries. The Board believes that the blockchain business remains to be in its early stage, analogous to the cellular web business in circa 2005.”
It continues: “Towards this backdrop, the Board believes cryptocurrencies have ample room for appreciation in worth and by allocating a part of its treasury in cryptocurrencies may also function a diversification to holding money treasury administration.”
Meitu additional explains that the Bitcoin funding is a part of its “asset allocation” plan whereas its wager on Ether will support its normal blockchain endeavor, whereby it’s contemplating baking blockchain into its numerous abroad companies, together with Ethereum-based dApps. It’s additionally seeking to spend money on abroad blockchain initiatives “that may be synergistic to its massive consumer base.”
As of June 2020, Meitu claimed almost 300 million month-to-month lively customers on its suite of apps launched throughout the globe.
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— to techcrunch.com