It was announced today that Shenzhen, China-based mining pool company ViaBTC has closed a series A funding of 20 million CNY (2.9 million USD) from bitcoin mining pioneer Bitmain Technologies and other private investors.
ViaBTC plans to first release a CNY/BTC exchange (at the domain www.viabtc.cn) by June 2017 for the domestic Chinese market. The new exchange plans include a high-speed matching engine, multilateral security protection, 100% excess reserves with rapid deposits and withdrawals.
ViaBTC entered into Bitcoin industry in June 2016 with a professional pool service and cloud mining products and has since built up a world-wide reputation in the Bitcoin community. The pool hashrate reached a record high in September last year, rising at a time to second in the world. ViaBTC has built a user base of nearly 10,000, among which 80% are from outside China.
The Team
ViaBTC has a team of 16 members. Most coming from top-tier dot com companies in China such as Tencent, Xunlei, MEIZU etc. and have years of experience in the Bitcoin industry.
Milestones
- Jun. 2016 — Official launch
- Sep. 2016 — Hashrate rose to top two in the world
- Oct. 2016 — Mined the 1000th block
- Nov. 2016 — Cloud mining contract online
- Jan. 2017 — Mined the 2000th block
- Apr. 2017 — Raised ¥20 million series A funding
Unique Features
- 1st Chinese pool who pays out transaction fees
ViaBTC adopted a unique PPS+ payment method which pays out both block reward and transaction fees to miners. It was unprecedented and successfully drove competition to follow suit and allocate more mining income.
- 1st public pool in the world who runs Bitcoin Unlimited
ViaBTC held a strong position when block scaling problem became imperative. The company stood out and became the first to run Bitcoin Unlimited when many were doubting or waiting. ViaBTC also facilitated other pools to run BU and made real practical moves for Bitcoin scaling.
- 1st pool who provides free transaction accelerator service
When the Bitcoin network was jammed by transaction backlogs, ViaBTC released a free accelerator to help expedite the confirmation of tens of thousands transactions for the community with zero charges.
- The most tech-intensive mining pool
With its proprietary Bitcoin client, ViaBTC has deployed a global high-speed network to broadcast blocks faster, and therefore enhance pool efficiency.
The Vision
From the downstream “Mining” to the upstream “Exchange” and “Payment” ViaBTC said they aim to extend their business to cover the entire blockchain industry ecosystem in the future.
