Publicly listed Chinese manufacturer buys Filecoin miners worth $90 million

New Universal (Newu), a Shenzhen-listed equipment manufacturer with a $400 million in market capitalization, has announced a move into the Filecoin mining space.

In a disclosure filed to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Tuesday, the firm said it has signed a purchasing contract with Sesumg, a Jiangxi-based electronic component manufacturer.

As part of the agreement, Newu is buying 580 million yuan ($90 million) worth of computing and storage equipment on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) network.

In the first batch of delivery, Sesumg will ship 500 units of computing and 100 units of storage equipment to Newu. Newu boasted that the potential revenue from the Filecoin storage-based mining could be as much as 119% of its 2019 revenue.

THE SCOOP

Keep up with the latest news, trends, charts and views on crypto and DeFi with a new biweekly newsletter from The Block's Frank Chaparro

By signing-up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
By signing-up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Based on its past filings, Newu made a net profit of $9.5 million on $74 million worth of revenue in 2019, which primarily came from the manufacturing and sale of industrial factory equipment.

This is the first known instance where a China-listed company has moved into Filecoin mining. 

In February, Chinese gaming company The9, which is listed on NASDAQ and already pivoted into bitcoin mining last year, has said it signed a $10 million agreement to purchase Filecoin mining equipment. 

The Filecoin network currently has 3.322 exbibytes of effective storage power with a majority of the contribution coming from Chinese companies. FIL, the native cryptocurrency on the decentralized storage network, is now changing hands around $72, according to data from CoinGecko.

About Author

Wolfie joined The Block’s news team in 2020 and switched to the research side in 2021 to focus on crypto mining analysis. Prior to The Block, he had been a journalist at CoinDesk for three years. Wolfie has a background in financial journalism.