Meitu now Holds $100 Million in BTC and Ether after Latest Bitcoin Purchase
Hong Kong app-production firm Meitu has revealed that it holds $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies in its portfolio. This was revealed in a disclosure filing on Thursday with the Hong Kong Stock exchange.
$100 million worth of Crypto-assets
Meitu reached the $100 million crypto-asset mark following its latest purchase of 175 bitcoins worth $10 million this week. This milestone was achieved over a series of three purchases within the space of a month.
On March 5 the company bought 379 bitcoins and 15,000 Ether. It subsequently expanded its portfolio by purchasing 16,000 Ether and 386 bitcoin on March 17 before its latest purchase on Thursday. In total, Meitu holds 31,000 ETH and 940 BTC in its portfolio.
In the filing report, Meitu revealed that investing in cryptocurrencies is part of the Group’s plans to diversify its portfolio. The company further stated that Bitcoin was an effective hedge against the depreciation of fiat currencies and was an excellent store of value.
“The Board believes cryptocurrencies have ample room for appreciation in value and by allocating part of its treasury in cryptocurrencies can also serve as a diversification to holding cash in treasury management,” it noted in the filing.
This development from Meitu is remarkable given that the company only announced a concrete policy to acquire crypto assets in March. It is understood that the app-maker intends to use some of the ETH in its holdings to launch decentralized applications in the future.
More institutions to follow suit?
Meitu is also one of the few Chinese-based public corporations to add cryptocurrency to their balance sheet. China has a strict policy on cryptocurrencies and only Chinese companies listed outside mainland China can invest in cryptocurrencies.
It will be interesting to see whether this policy changes as bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are becoming popular among institutions. Other publicly traded companies globally have started adding Bitcoin to their portfolio.
Car manufacturing giant Tesla recently committed $1.5 billion towards purchasing bitcoin and subsequently revealed that it would be accepting payments in BTC. Twitter CEO also hinted that the social media giant could begin accepting bitcoins. The current market sentiment is high with Bitcoin and Ethereum recently surpassing all-time highs leading to expectations that more companies could add the assets to their portfolio.
