Publicly Traded Fintech Firm Agrees to Acquire Chinese Mining Farm for $9M

Future FinTech, a New York-based publicly traded software firm, has acquired Nanjing Ribensi Electronic Technology Co. in an effort to break into bitcoin mining.

The U.S. tech company purchased the Chinese miner for $9 million, according to a press release. Per the agreement, FutureFinTech will take full ownership of the firm’s mining operations, which includes some 30,000 ASICs located in China’s hydro-rich Sichuan region, but Nanjing Ribensi’s current staff will continue maintaining the farms.

Future FinTech CEO Shanchun Huang said the low cost of energy was a factor in the decision.

The farm “enables us to deploy advanced bitcoin mining machines, but to potentially generate profits due to the expected low energy cost of the target mining farm since it uses local low cost of hydroelectricity to run the mining machines," he said.

According to the statement, the sale comes with guaranteed profit targets between $2 million and $4 million up to 2023. If the farm fails to hit these numbers, then Nanjing Ribensi’s shareholders will make up the difference, the press release claims. 

In the months leading up to the purchase, FutureFinTech issued new shares to raise a total of $35 million, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show.  The company’s stock jumped on the news but has since retraced this move.

See also: Bitcoin Miners Saw a Monthly Record $1.5B Revenue in March

Bitcoin miners came off their best month ever in March, raking in over $1.5 billion in revenue. The Bitcoin network’s mining difficulty recently adjusted to a new all-time high as a result.

Future FinTech’s acquisition comes at a time when interest from traditional companies towards bitcoin and its spawn of digital assets has never been higher.