GMO Internet Winds Down Bitcoin Hardware Equipment Manufacturing

Public document indicates that Japanese Internet giant GMO Internet Group is leaving the Bitcoin hardware mining industry. Citing this year’s “extraordinary losses” in Q4, GMO, which began its initiation into Bitcoin mining in 2017, said it would “no longer develop, manufacture and sell” miners.

The announcement further states “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.”

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

The news makes GMO the latest victim on the Bitcoin (BTC) market in 2018, with falling prices affecting mining profitability. In addition, scenes in China showed massive hardware dumping, followed by news of major player Bitmain’s redundancies.

After its Israeli operations came to an end this week, new reports suggested that Bitmain was preparing to fire up to half of its 2,500-strong work force. The consolidated losses of GMO for Q4 totalled 35.5 billion yen (320 million dollars), while the unconsolidated loss will amount to 38 billion yen (334.5 million dollars).

The company said that its “financial integrity” had not been affected by the losses. In November, the company reported “historical” performance of its cryptocurrency projects in Q3, which included mining hardware sales. The profit amounted to 2.6 billion yen (22,8 million dollars).