Three Bitcoin tycoons who founded Blockchain.com are believed to be worth hundreds of millions after their cryptocurrency firm was valued at £3.8billion.
Founders Peter Smith, Nicolas Cary and Ben Reeves are thought to have kept considerable stakes in the company, which monitors crypto transactions and traces its beginnings to a ‘small, crowded’ two-bedroom flat in York.
Headquartered in London, the business has secured more than £218million in funding from global investors.
Mr Smith posted on Twitter: ‘I’m pleased to share that @Blockchain has raised a Series C, securing $300M (218.6mil) in funding at a $5.2B (£3.8bn) post-money valuation led by DST Global, @lightspeedvp and VY Capital.’
Chief executive Peter Smith, above. He said: ‘I’m pleased to share that @Blockchain has raised a Series C, securing $300M (218.6mil) in funding at a $5.2B (£3.8bn) post-money valuation’
Founders Nicolas Cary (pictured left) and Ben Reeves (right), who are thought to have kept considerable stakes in the company, which monitors crypto transactions
A spokesman said that inside shareholders own the majority of the business, reports The Telegraph.
Writing on the company’s website, CEO Mr Smith said: ‘Since 2011, the Blockchain.com team has been heads down, relentlessly focused on building a company at the intersection of cryptocurrency, institutions, and (most importantly) people around the world.
‘We continue to be honored by the trust our consumer and institutional clients put in us each day. Over 31M verified users in over 200 countries use our products, and we’ve seen a 3x increase in active users over the past 12 months alone.
‘This round follows our $120M strategic growth round that we announced a month ago, led by a number of the best macro investors in the world.’
The chief executive has previously said the business was founded in a ‘small, crowded flat’ in York, adding: ‘As such, many of our first and longest Wallet users are Brits who were willing to go out on a limb with us, and a network that was more likely to be called insane than investible.’
Mr Smith, who graduated from the University of London, wrote yesterday: ‘With one of the most significant balance sheets in the industry, we plan to aggressively expand the products we offer our customers, grow our global team, and pursue M&A opportunities to bring exciting new products and ideas into the company.
Mr Smith’s post on Twitter, pictured above. Writing on the company’s website, he added: ‘This round follows our $120M strategic growth round that we announced a month ago’
The chief executive (pictured above) has previously said the business was founded in a ‘small, crowded’ two-bedroom flat in York
‘I couldn’t be more proud of the team, I couldn’t be more optimistic about the future of Blockchain.com, our products, and our brand to meet this moment.’
Bitcoins are traded via a decentralised registry system known as a blockchain, and found by so-called Bitcoin ‘miners’, who enable new Bitcoins to be created, but also to independently verify and record every transaction made with the currency.
More accurately, Bitcoins are the reward miners get for maintaining the transaction record accurately.
The mining works like a lottery that runs every ten minutes, with processing centres around the world racing to compile and submit this record of transactions in a way that is accepted by the system.
They also guess a random number, with the first to submit and record the correct number the winner of the prize, with this becoming the next block in the blockchain.
Mr Smith, above, who graduated from the University of London, wrote: ‘We plan to aggressively expand the products we offer our customers, grow our global team, and pursue M&A opportunities’