Block.one, the blockchain development company responsible for the creation of EOSIO protocol, has announced that it brought in Peter Thiel, a world-renowned venture capitalist and Jihan Wu, the famous Bitmain Technologies owner as investors. This has been confirmed by a public announcement made by the company which confirmed that the investment round will be held. The round will bring in other notable investors like Louis Bacon, founder of Moore Capital Management LP and Alan Howard, another famous hedge fund billionaire.
“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,” said Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer for block.one news.
Peter Thiel is known as one of the most famous venture capitalists in the world. After founding PayPal in 1998, he went on to become one of the initial investors in Facebook and has been involved in companies like AirBnB, Linkedln and Yelp. His interest in block.one suggests that the company has joined an impressive line-up of Thiel’s previous good calls and will increase its profile in the eyes of potential investors.
Jihan Wu is the co-founder of Bitmain, world’s largest Bitcoin mining equipment producer (recently reported to be valued at 12 billion USD) and alleged owner of the biggest mining pool in the world. Somewhat ironically, he is also known as an avid supporter of Bitcoin Cash and has been declared by Coindesk as one of the most influential people in crypto. He recently spoke out on what he feels about the EOS project:
“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.”
This round comes after an earlier one, led by Christian Angermayer, Lansdowne Investment Company Ltd, and Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz, was completed at the start of June. This round was held as an ICO and lasted exactly one year, during which block.one managed to collect a cool 4 billion USD. However, this investment round was held to fund EOS project exclusively; the second one is apparently being held to fund block.one general activities.
The reaction of the community, especially in light of the recent EOS struggles, has been mixed so far. While most EOS holders are excited (rightfully so) to see investors of Peter Thiel’s and Jihan Wu’s caliber invest in the company behind their project, other crypto experts did offer contrarian opinions. @WhalePanda on Twitter commented sarcastically on these news:
“Often after I received $4 billion in funding I also think to myself: I need more funding. $4 billion isn’t enough, that only allows me to go full billionaire mode 4 times.”
The block.one entity did technically surrender control of the EOS project to the public, but the questionable governance issues and the fact that they still hold a significant amount of EOS does rightfully make people angry at the company. Many are wondering what have the already collected 4 billion USD been spent on, and murmurs are picking up about these additional funds as well. EOS whitepaper did promise regular financial audits, but those have never happened as of now. This latest investment will surely line the block.one coffers and increase its profile in the investment world; it remains to be seen if it will help solve the EOS-related problems that have been troubling the company and the community.
