DST Global Denies Bitmain IPO Investment Few Days After SoftBank, Tencent’s Involvement Called Into Question

Investment firm DST Global has confirmed that it “has never invested” into the cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain’s pre-IPO in an email to Cointelegraph August 21.

Cointelegraph received an anonymous tip today, claiming that DST Global has not participated in Bitmain’s $400 million funding round earlier this year, despite reports to the contrary.

After being asked to confirm the rumour, John Lindfors, a managing partner at DST Global, has said this in an email to Cointelegraph today:

“I can confirm that DST has never invested in Bitmain.”

The news follows days after another major player, Uber’s largest investor SoftBank, told Cointelegraph that reports about its participation in Bitmain’s initial public offering (IPO) were also false.

“Neither the SoftBank Group Corp. nor the SoftBank Vision Fund were in any way involved in the deal,” a spokesperson said August 18.

Also today, Chinese multinational Tencent has allegedly denied involvement in Bitmain’s IPO, according to a Hong Kong news outlet AAStocks.

According to the publication, China’s largest technology entity by market cap confirmed that “the company did not take part in the investment of Bitmain Technologies.”

As of press time, Tencent had not responded to requests from Cointelegraph to confirm the AAStocks report.

The news nonetheless increases the already controversial nature of Bitmain’s IPO plans, which centers on the company’s Bitcoin Cash (BCH) holdings, rumoured poor Q2 sales and the general underperformance of cryptocurrency markets this year.

Cryptocurrency industry and well-known community commentators reacted warily to a pre-IPO investor deck disclosure earlier this month, Blockstream CSO Samson Mow describing the planned flotation as “incredibly risky for any investor to buy into.”

“They purposely didn't include the Q2 numbers for Pre-IPO buyers since they were a disaster... They told Pre-IPO buyers they would use some of the money to buy more BCH,” commentator WhalePanda meanwhile added during a Twitter debate before the SoftBank news.

As of press time, Bitmain has not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for commentary.