Block.one Receives Investment Money from Peter Thiel and Bitmain

Block.one announced yesterday that it has received funding from a collection of individuals and companies, notably including Peter Thiel and Bitmain. The press release does not divulge how much money was raised.

Block.one

Block.one is a software company registered in the Cayman Islands. CEO Brendan Blumer created the company with programmer Dan Larimer in March 2017, and released its first project in May.

That project was , a blockchain platform that supports smart contracts, like Ethereum does. The initial coin offering of this venture was set up to last for more than a year, and altogether $4 billion was raised. After some it recently , and has a market capitalisation of $7.1 billion according to coinmarketcap.com.

EOS has been criticised for its overly-centralised system; transactions are processed by no more than 21 nodes, which are actually usually companies that have run . These nodes are voted into position by the rest of the community but some argue that this is no guarantee against manipulation.

Investors

Peter Thiel is a German-born American venture capitalist with a new worth of approximately $2.5 billion. He was one of the founders of PayPal, which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, invested early in Facebook, and set up investment funds like Valar Ventures and Mithril Capital. Another fund of his bought millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin in 2017.

Bitmain is a Chinese company which manufactures Bitcoin mining machinery and mines almost half of the world’s Bitcoin itself, making it. It has an estimated value of $12 billion. CEO Jihan Wu said: “The EOSIO protocol is a great example of blockchain innovation. Its performance and scalability can meet the needs of demanding consumer applications and will pave the way for mainstream blockchain adoption.”

, Bitmain is one of the nodes in the EOS network.

According to the press release, other investors include billionaires Louis Bacon and Alan Howard.

Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer said: “As Block.one prepares to announce its future plans, we’re excited to welcome key strategic investors aligned with our values of creating a more secure and connected world.” He has not yet revealed what these future plans are.