Bitmain Left With No Option But to Shut Down Israel Office Amidst Crypto Market Downturn

The heavy downturn of the crypto market in the last few months has caused several businesses to run out operations. This scenario is more prominent with the cryptocurrency mining firms as the continuous fall in Bitcoin price has severely hit their profitability. Even Bitmain, the largest company in the crypto-mining sector is facing the heat of the market downturn.

On Monday, December 10, the local business publication Globes reported that the company has Chinese mining giant has shut down its Israeli operations - Bitmaintech Israel. This was basically the company’s development center started two years back in 2016 in Ra’anana. As part of the closure, Bitmain VP Gadi Glikberg along with 23 other employees at the Israeli office shall be laid off.

Bitmain said that under the prolonged cryptocurrency bear market, it was getting difficult for the company to continue with its operations as the situation kept on worsening with each passing month.

Glikberg told employees: “The crypto market has undergone a shakeup in the past few months, which has forced Bitmain to examine its various activities around the globe and refocus its business in accordance with the current situation.”

Bitmain over the years has specialized in the manufacturing on crypto-mining instrument and equipment’s with its AntMiner chip being quite popular in the industry. However, the Israel office was more focused on developing the company’s ConnectBTC mining pool and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology for its “Sophon” project.

Bitmain’s decision this week is stark opposite to what it was planning six months back. In July, Globes reported that Bitmain was planning to expand its Israel operations and increase the staff by nearly three-fold. However, the market woes have severely hit almost every crypto business on the planet and hence many of them, just like Bitmain, have been realigning their businesses according to the changing conditions.

Bitmain’s aggressive business decisions earlier this year have also not turned out good for the company. In August 2018, the company planned to go public and raise some money through Initial Public Offering (IPO). However, just when the market is not supportive you’re certain to get a lukewarm response.