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A map of institutions investing in bitcoin: 260 million bitcoin hoarders, Ethereum? Meitu also has three "hind hands"

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The $40 million is just a small step for Meitu, whose plan to "enter the blockchain industry" is just beginning.

Original source: Oklink Cloud Link

Bitcoin "institutional fever" has officially entered Hong Kong from overseas.

On March 7, Meitu announced that it spent 260 million RMB to purchase 15,000 ethereum and 379.12 bitcoins, becoming "the first Hong Kong listed company to purchase BTC" and "the first Hong Kong listed company in the world to use ETH as a reserve of currency value".

This isn't a "first" for Meitu -- it broke into the blockchain industry back in 2018, with occasional bubbles. Cai Wensheng himself is a "sweeping monk" in the digital asset industry, and has innumerable ties with many leading organizations in the industry.

If you pay close attention to Meitu's announcement, you may find that this $40 million is just a small step for Meitu, which has just begun to "enter the blockchain industry".

260 million tuen, hype or layout?

Meitu officially became the "first person in Hong Kong" -- bringing Bitcoin's "institutional fever" to the Hong Kong stock market. At around 18:00 on Sunday, Meitu announced that the group had purchased 15,000 Ethereum coins and 379.12 Bitcoins respectively for $22.1 million and $17.9 million on March 5. After the announcement, it became a hot topic on Weibo. Later, Cai Wensheng, chairman of Meitu, said in Versailles, "This should be the first listed company in Hong Kong to purchase BTC digital currency, and also the first listed company in the world to use ETH Ethereum as currency value reserve".

This is the first time Bitcoin and Ethereum have made a "public appearance" on the Hong Kong stock market, which naturally triggered a series of market reactions. The digital asset market was the first to react to the announcement -- Ethereum reacted strongly, with the price rising from $1,675.25 at 18:00 to $1,754.68, an increase of nearly 5%. At the same time, the price of Bitcoin also saw a slight increase, from $50,617.6 to a high of $51,829.9, quoted at $53,729.6. In Hong Kong, shares of Meitu (1357.HK) jumped 14% to as high as HK $3.10 as the market opened on March 8, but fell back quickly and are now trading at HK $2.640. The stock price swings show the market's mixed attitude to Meitu's move.

(Source: Yahoo Finance)

从公司经营来看，美图公司成立于 2008 年 10 月，旗下有美图秀秀、美颜相机等软硬件产品，2016 年 12 月 15 日，美图公司于香港主板挂牌上市。根据 2020 年上半年财报，美图公司经营状况良好，上半年营收达到 5.575 亿元人民币，同比增长 20.1%。从财报上看，美图并无炒作数字资产、拉升股价的必要——这次斥 2.6 亿人民币购入比特币、以太坊两种数字资产，似乎是出于公司的新的战略意图。

From the perspective of the digital asset industry, Meituan's entry force is slightly insufficient and does not have a strong impact on the Bitcoin market, but to some extent, it pushes up the market price of Ethereum and slightly boosts the market confidence.

From the Hong Kong stock market, this action is more interpreted as speculation behavior, questioned by the general investors, and even some people suspect that this operation is because "Meitu Chairman Cai Wensheng Bitcoin is covered", "listed companies take the company's money to invest in high-risk targets, the main business is not good, the more they want to make quick money".

Cai Wensheng: A "sweeping monk" in the digital asset industry

Meituan is not new to the digital asset industry, and Cai Wensheng is not new. According to the daily economic news, as early as in early 2018, Mr. CAI and friends formed a "chain" sleepless blocks at three o 'clock WeChat group, known as block chain first dry group, like shen, 360, chairman of the sequoia capital Zhou Hongyi, xue savages, distributed Shen Bo capital partners, gao xiaosong, liyan tong and other stars are even members of the group. At the same time, Meitu also released a white paper on blockchain, saying it would build an "AI-based blockchain ecology" and build a decentralized identity pass for users -- Meitu Smart Pass.

In February 2018, Meitu began to arrange its management and appointed Professor Zhang Shousheng as an independent non-executive director. Zhang Shousheng, who has passed away, was a Chinese-American physicist and tenured professor at Stanford University. He was also the founder of Danhua Capital and was deeply involved in blockchain industry investment. Meitu's layout for the blockchain industry from this time has been seen.

Later, Mr. CAI as an investor, and involved in a number of important digital asset industry investment, especially in the digital asset trading platform track, according to the blue whale financial reports, 18 years of the digital asset trading platform FCoin, Mr. CAI founded long collar investment have equity participation, other head behind the trading platform also has his shadow.

(Source: Meitu Announcement)

此次，美图斥资 4 千万美金购入以太坊与比特币，根据公告，是因为「董事会认为，区块链技术具有颠覆现有金融和科技行业的潜力，区块链行业仍处于早期阶段，类似于 2005 年左右的移动互联网行业」，「加密货币具有足够的升值空间，并且在此时通过将其部分现金储备金分配到加密货币，可以用作资金管理中分散持有现金之风险」。同时，此举也是为了「向投资者和利益持份者表明本集团接受技术革新的抱负和决心，从而为进军区块链行业做好了准备」。

It can be seen that this announcement has a very obvious color of Cai Wensheng, but also adhering to his consistent enthusiasm for the blockchain industry.

1 亿美金投资数字资产？美图还有三大「后手」

"Listen to what you say, watch what you do" -- Meitu seems to have many successors. First, Meitu may have a digital asset purchase plan to follow.

According to Meitu's March 7 announcement, "These purchases were made pursuant to a cryptocurrency investment plan previously approved by the Board of Directors of the Company (the" Board of Directors ") (the "Cryptocurrency Investment Plan") under which the Group may purchase cryptocurrencies up to a net amount of US $100 million ". So far, Meitu has spent only $40 million, which is still a long way from the $100 million the board agreed to spend. Meitu will continue to purchase digital assets, is also a test of its digital asset strategy is speculation or layout of an important signal.

其次，不同于其他上市公司，美图公司对于以太坊的重视程度超过了比特币。美图投入 2,210 万美金购入 15,000 枚以太坊，而比特币仅投入了 1,790 万美金。在公告中，美图阐明了原因，并且对以太坊极力吹捧，「以太坊网络上的去中心化应用程序（「dApps」）数量最多，这归因于其对开发人员友好的界面，可减少编程时间以快速启动项目，以及强大且不断发展的致力于升级网络并推动其采用的全球开发者社区网络。横跨金融、游戏、社交媒体以及艺术品和收藏品等多个领域的 dApp 已经采用了以太坊协议」。

For Meitu, which has plans to enter blockchain and launch "its own dAPP", Ethereum is both an investment vehicle and a "reserve fuel".

Finally, Meitu's investment in Bitcoin is both a result and a cause of "institutional fever". As the currency gradually become mainstream assets, insurance companies, information technology companies began to embrace the currency, "more and more listed companies are buying encryption currency as part of its capital management", access to the convenience of digital assets, "regulators have also started to license encryption currency trading platform", won the board of directors resolution, into the "the institution heat", both as fuel, when the train again.

On March 8, Norwegian holding company Aker (Aker.ol) announced the establishment of Seetee AS and the purchase of 1,170 Bitcoins with an investment of about $58.6 million. As of this press date, there are 27 listed companies holding 175,162.94 Bitcoins with a market value of nearly $9.4 billion, with an average purchase price of $25,100.84 per bitcoin, according to OKLink.

(Source: Oklink)

Although caused a lot of question of the market, but the holdings of listed companies continue to achieve positive feedback the currency has become a boom - listed companies to buy COINS, activate the overall confidence and potential of market of digital assets, from the Angle of the economics of "narrative" sketched a more magnificent blueprint for the digital assets, accelerating the process of mainstream digital assets, such as COINS, and reverse to stimulate the stock market performance of listed companies.

Meitu, as the first listed company in Hong Kong stock market to publicly hold positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum, has an important precedent and exploration significance. It breaks the regulatory concerns of Hong Kong stock companies on holding digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and provides more possibilities for listed companies to develop and innovate. At the same time, the growth potential of digital assets received a significant boost after Meitu opened the door to Hong Kong-listed companies.