Meitu Xiuxiu's parent company spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy bitcoin, and Cai Wensheng has already entered the FCoin, Ouyi and Matcha exchanges, saying that it has received its investment and has been involved in the ICO storm

On March 7, 1357.hk announced that it had purchased 15,000 units of Ether and 379.1214267 units of Bitcoin on the open market on March 5 for a total consideration of about $22.1 million and $17.9 million, respectively. The total purchase price is approximately RMB140 million and RMB110 million.

According to the above data, the average price of Meitu's purchase of Ethereum and Bitcoin is $1473 and $47,200, respectively, which is about 9500 yuan and 300,000 yuan. Holders with thousands of Bitcoins are called "giant whales." According to bitinfochats, there are about 148,000 addresses that hold more than 100 bitcoins, accounting for 0.04%.

The announcement mentioned that the transaction was based on a cryptocurrency investment plan approved by Meitu's board of directors. Under the scheme, companies can purchase cryptocurrencies with a net amount of no more than $100 million, funded by existing cash reserves. From this point of view, Meitu only occupies less than half of the quota, or will continue to invest.

In addition to investment, Meitu said it has plans to enter the blockchain industry. Its board of directors believes that blockchain technology, which has the potential to disrupt the existing financial and technology industries, is still in its early stages, similar to the mobile internet industry around 2005. In this regard, it said that cryptocurrencies have enough room for appreciation to be used as a way to diversify the risk of holding cash in money management, maximize the long-term interests of shareholders, and prepare for the blockchain industry.

In fact, Meitu affiliates have long been involved in the blockchain industry, invested in blockchain companies, and have been involved in the ICO storm. The purpose bec (US dollar) was once considered a blockchain project of Meitu.

According to the White Paper of Meitu, Meitu and Meitu reached a strategic cooperation in February 2018, and cooperated with Meitu's overseas product Beautyplus with Meitu. Project sponsor Ryan Cheung's employment experience includes presslogic CEO. According to public information, Presslogic is a Hong Kong start-up that received a $10 million A+ round of financing from Meitu in November 2018. Picture information shows that Presslogic's Series A financing is also led by Meitu. Bec was a big hit at the beginning of its launch. At that time, Meitu's entry into the blockchain had fluctuated Meitu's stock price.

In April 2018, two months after the launch of the beautychain (Mei Chain) public chain ecological token bec token, there was an abnormal transaction, and hackers generated tokens indefinitely through the batch transfer method of the contract, triggering a wave of selling, and the coin price was almost zero.

Cai Wensheng, chairman of Meitu, debunked rumors in the circle of friends that beautychain is a blockchain product developed by a third-party independent institution, and Meitu's application beautyplus has promoted cooperation with it overseas, denying that Meitu has issued any tokens or tokens. At the time, the regulatory crackdown on ICOs had been close to half a year. Despite denying the association ico, Meitu was recruiting blockchain experts at the time, and Wu Xinhong, founder and CEO of Meitu, admitted at the results conference that the blockchain product bec wallet was launched overseas.

Soon after, fcoin, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cai Wensheng and in which Longling Investment participated, went online.

fcoin was launched in May 2018, and founder Zhang Jian left Huobi in 2016 to found Bochen Technology, which is also the initiator of Singer Capital. In the early days of fcoin, it attracted a large number of users due to the transaction mining model, and the scenery was momentary. A year ago, Zhang Jian, the founder of fcoin, published the article "The Truth about fcoin" to disclose the asset holes of fcoin. According to the text, the fcoin transaction mining has caused an outflow of assets due to the excessive dividends paid to users, and it was estimated that about $100 million of assets could not be redeemed at the time.

Lon Ling Investment has been sued for investing in cryptocurrency trading platform fcoin. In July 2020, a ruling by the Beilun District People's Court of Ningbo City revealed that the parties had property damage compensation disputes with defendants such as Beijing Bochen Technology Co., Ltd. ("Beijing Bochen"), the subject of fcoin. Beijing Bochen's shareholders Yonyou Network (600588.sh), Longling Investment, Chaoyuan Venture Capital's private equity fund, Origin Capital founder Ran Lizhi, and Node Capital's founding partner Du were all sued. The case was transferred to the Chaoyang District People's Court of Beijing Municipality for trial due to jurisdiction issues. Some police "Circulars" and "Warning Letters" mentioned that the illegal business operation case of Beijing Bochen was investigated by the Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau in March 2019.

As an angel investor, Cai Wensheng also has a public identity and is an investor in the head cryptocurrency exchange Ouyiokex. According to the investment community, in December 2017, the original Okex Group completed a new round of financing with a financing amount of tens of millions of DOLLARs, including Giant Network, Tang Yue, founder of Qianhe Capital eLong Travel Network, and Cai Wensheng, chairman of Meitu. According to Hash Finance, Cai Wensheng said in the "three o'clock sleepless blockchain" WeChat group that he had invested in okcoin in 2014, and did not invest deeply in the blockchain industry at that time.

Cai Wensheng was involved in the domain name business in the early days, and since then, his investments have included 4399 Games, 58.com, Storm Technology and Meitu Xiuxiu. According to the official website of Longling Investment, investment cases also include Zhihu. Tianyancha's cases also include massk networks, matcha exchanges, blockchain insurance products finsur, and blockchain application ecom chain.

There have been multiple public reports that the Matcha Exchange has said it has received investment from Cai Wensheng. The Financial Associated Press reported that in July 2019, the Matcha Exchange once again claimed to have received Cai Wensheng's personal strategic investment. Cai Wensheng has not publicly denied it. The partners listed on the official website of the Matcha Exchange have not invested in Longling. Matcha belongs to the second echelon in the "domestic" exchange, launched in 2018, its early rapid expansion method has been questioned, the founder is Chen Jian, matcha's previous affiliate company Sichuan Cat Star City Technology Co., Ltd. has been written off, and there is currently a smear chain technology set up in China.

According to public information, Meitu was founded in October 2008, and its subsidiaries include Meitu Xiuxiu, Beauty Camera, BeautyPlus and the short video community Meipai. In December 2016, Meitu (hk.1357) was listed on the Hong Kong stock market and has not achieved profitability for many years since its listing. In the first half of 2020, the loss was about 25 million yuan. Meitu has said that it has adjusted its non-profitable and asset-heavy e-commerce and smart phone businesses and transformed it into an asset-light company.

Meitu was listed on the Main Board of Hong Kong on 15 December 2016 at an issue price of HK$8.5. As of March 5, Meitu had a closing price of HK$2.71 and a total market capitalization of HK$11.779 billion. The stock opened at HK$8.78 at the start of its listing and rose as high as HK$23.05.

Meitu's ties to the cryptocurrency industry also include the appointment of Professor Zhang Shousheng as an Independent Non-Executive Director in February 2018. Zhang Shousheng is now deceased, a physicist of Chinese descent, a tenured professor at Stanford University, and the founder of Danhua Capital. Danhua Capital is deeply involved in the investment of the blockchain industry and has been involved in many fields in the industry. In the public interview with Wang Feng, Cai Wensheng once said that he was an lp of Danhua Capital, and during the interview, he also mentioned that the goal was to have 10,000 bitcoins, and said that the small goal had been basically achieved.

The announcement explains the investment in Ethereum, stating that Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based decentralized software platform that uses its own cryptocurrency, ether. In general, trading or executing a contract on the Ethereum platform requires consuming Ether (as 'fuel'). Currently, there is the largest number of decentralized applications on the Ethereum network.

Meitu said that the Group is currently evaluating the feasibility of integrating blockchain technology into its various overseas businesses, including but not limited to decentralized applications based on Ethereum, and finding suitable blockchain-based overseas projects for potential investment, while many blockchain-based projects only accept Ether as investment consideration. Therefore, the purchase of Ether allows the Group to use Ether as a fuel reserve when launching its own decentralized application in the future, while investing in blockchain projects that accept Ether as consideration.

As for the reasons for investing in Bitcoin, Meitu said that Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency launched more than a decade ago and has multiple features, including store of value alternatives, its limited supply, convertible into fiat currency or goods and services, portability, and the potential to serve as an effective hedge against the pressure of fiat currency depreciation. Meitu believes that some of these features may even make Bitcoin superior to other alternatives to stores of value, such as gold, gemstones, and real estate. Recently, the cryptocurrency market has been volatile. As of the 7th, the unit price of Bitcoin has recovered to $50,000.

Meitu revealed that the Ether and Bitcoin purchased by the Group will be deposited on a well-known cryptocurrency trading platform employed by the Group and with high security.

This article originated from Blue Whale Finance