Meitu sees bitcoin as a good store of value that can surpass gold. The funds will remain under the custody of a contracted exchange.
Meitu, a Chinese company that focuses on developing artificial intelligence for mobile applications, invested $ 40 million in cryptocurrencies. The purchase happened in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), Ethereum’s native currency.
The company itself confirmed the purchase through a statement on its website last Sunday. According to the note, Meitu acquired 15,000 ETH and 379.1214267 BTC last Friday, March 5. This purchase also represented a sum of USD 22.1 million in ETH and USD 17.9 million in bitcoin.
This purchase is part of a cryptocurrency investment plan previously approved by the board of directors. The text also clarified that this program’s mission is to invest USD 100 million in cryptocurrencies. However, it is unclear if the rest of the purchase will also be bitcoin, ether, or another functional currency on the market.
The note states that “any cryptocurrency that the group may buy/ sell under the Cryptocurrency Investment Plan will depend on market conditions and will happen at the discretion of the Board.” With this choice, they open a set of possibilities to consider any cryptocurrency, depending on the moment’s conditions.
The statement says that the board went to invest in the two leading cryptocurrencies according to market capitalization, considering that these “should set an improvement to the value for shareholders in the long term.”
For Meitu, the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem is still at an early stage to fulfill a disruptive potential similar to that of the Internet. It wants to play a role in that process.
Meitu said: “The Board considers this to be an example to investors and stakeholders, showing that the Group’s vision and determination are to embrace technological evolution, and therefore prepare its foray into the blockchain industry.”
Meitu: Bitcoin as an Investment and Ether as Entry to the Blockchain Industry
The company considers that bitcoin could turn into a form superior to other stores of value, such as real estate and gold. Meitu is now part of a massive wave of investors putting the bitcoin in the reserve of value asset’s leading role.
For its part, the Board of Directors of the company considers the Ethereum cryptocurrency a potential gateway to the ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps) that live on this network.
Currently, Meitu is studying how viable it could be to integrate blockchains in its businesses. Those studies add the potential launch of dApps on Ethereum, “as well as identifying suitable overseas blockchain-based projects for potential investments.”
The amount of ETH that the company will acquire could be useful as a “gas reserve” for their possible dApps or as a way to invest in other projects that they find interesting.
Meitu is now part of the wave of institutional investors in bitcoin, which has caused the recent price increases that put BTC around $ 50,000 per unit.
By: Jenson Nuñez
