Publicly traded Chinese gaming company The9 (NCTY) announced an agreement to buy 26,007 bitcoin ASICs as part of its plan to launch a cryptocurrency mining initiative.
- The9's subsidiary NBTC will own and operate the machines, which are expected to total 549 petahashes per second (PH/s) of hash power.
- The9 says a "majority" of these mining machines have already been deployed in Xinjiang, Sichuan and Gansu.
- Per a press release, Canaan's (CAN) former director, Jianping Kong, will also help the Shanghai-based Internet company launch and maintain its cryptocurrency mining operations.
- Details about which machines and from where The9 purchased them were not disclosed, but The9 said it signed five separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to secure the machines.
- The9 will issue shares to pay for the new machines, but didn't disclose how many shares are to be issued.
- Shares of the company gained more than 18% Monday from their Friday close, currently trading above $13.
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