GMO Internet Group Quits Bitcoin Mining Business

Japanese internet giant GMO Internet Group is ditching the bitcoin mining hardware sector, according to a report citing a public documents.

Attributing to “extraordinary loss” in the fourth quarter this year, GMO, which kicked off its foray into bitcoin mining in 2017, said that it will “no longer develop, manufacture, and sell” miners.

“After taking into consideration changes in the current business environment, the Company expects that it is difficult to recover the carrying amounts of the in-house-mining-related business assets, and therefore, it has been decided to record an extraordinary loss,” the document reads.

GMO will further relocate its mining operation “to a region that will allow us to secure cleaner and less expensive power supply.”

The news marks GMO as the most recent casualty of the 2018 bitcoin bear market, with falling prices taking their toll on mining profitability.

Reports also showed scenes from China where mass dumping of hardware took place, followed by the news of redundancy from major player Bitmain.

After closing down its Israeli operations, this week, news reports surfaced and suggested that Bitmain was readying to fire up to half of its 2,500-strong work force.

GMO’s consolidated losses for fourth quarter totaled 35,5 billion yen ($320 million), while the unconsolidated loss tally will be roughly 38 billion yen ($334.5 million).

The company said that the losses had not affected its “financial integrity.”

In a similar bearish scenario, Morgan Creek Digital Assets founder Anthony Pompliano said that bitcoin still has “lower to go” in spite of its bull run to higher than $4,000 last week.

During an interview, Pompliano, who is also a frequent markets commentator on social media, became the latest figure to claim that bitcoin markets will only bottom out when the price slips below $3,000.

“Short term, I actually think we have lower to go,” he said.

In November, Pompliano had predicted a plunge to $3,000 for BTC/USD, which subsequently took place earlier this month.

Since then, prices across the crypto markets have taken off, with bitcoin reaching its monthly high of nearly $4,300 before correcting downwards to hover $3,782.