Developments overnight brought together two exciting trends: cryptocurrency mining and blank-cheque companies, or SPACs. Essentially, the crypto miner Bitfury is merging with Good Works Acquisition Corp., a SPAC that itself only listed six months ago.
(This is the press release; also do scan the Reuters article about it.
This would instantly take public what is the US’s largest bitcoin mining company. When the deal is finalised (the upcoming second quarter of 2021), the company is expected list on the Nasdaq under the symbol CIFR.
With this, CIFR will join a few other crypto mining companies that have gone public in the US, like Riot Blockchain, Hive Blockchain, Hut 8 Mining and The Marathon Patent Group.
Finally, the deal is also notable because it involves a big cash infusion from Fidelity Management & Research Company and Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global, who are investors. This is yet another example of America’s largest financial institutions getting fairly deeply involved in cryptocurrency: from mining to trading to asset custody.