A Chinese tea trader wants to get into the Bitcoin mining business. Publicly traded Urban Tea announced it was expanding its business by appointing two executives to pursue its crypto plans.
Urban Tea praises the widespread popularity of cryptocurrencies
According to the announcement, Urban Tea Inc. hired Fengdan Zhou as the company’s new chief operating officer and Dr. Yunfei Song as an independent director. The tea trader expects the new roles to spearhead the company’s “critical strategic expansion in blockchain and cryptocurrency mining.”
Zhou looks forward to implementing the company’s Bitcoin (BTC) business plan. Her experience includes working in blockchain data centers across Southeast Asia and managing crypto mining farms. In addition, she is experienced in developing crypto hardware wallets that contain announcement details.
Dr. Song has an academic background, particularly as a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In fact, his areas of expertise include blockchain technology, crypto mining, and artificial intelligence, among others.
Urban Tea CEO Yi Long praised the widespread popularity that cryptos have gained recently. He also pointed out that the “world’s financial experts” have built trust in the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Long further comments on the attitudes of Zhou and Dr. Song:
We expect that their industry expertise combined with our growth strategy will lead our expansion plan into the cryptocurrency mining industry. We assume that in the future Urban Tea will expand into blockchain ecology, such as B. Cryptocurrency mining, building and maintaining blockchain mines and exchanging cryptocurrencies.
Urban Tea, based in Hunan, China, was founded in 2011 and is currently listed on Nasdaq as MYT. At press time, the company’s stock was trading at $ 6.05 with a market capitalization of $ 45 million. This maneuver is the first crypto-related deal in the company’s history.
The newest tea trader’s crypto mining venture ended in disaster
There are some precedents in place from tea traders joining the crypto industry. Long Island Iced Tea Corp, another publicly traded company, bought 1,000 units of Antminer S9 manufactured by Bitmain in 2018 to join the crypto mining business. After that, the company was renamed “Long Blockchain Corp.”.
However, the company ended in disaster. When Long Blockchain Corp acquired the crypto hardware, the shares rose 500%. But mining plans went in the trash when the bears of crypto showed up in February 2018.
When Long Blockchain Corp’s shares were delisted from Nasdaq, the company also had to sell its tea business.
The story didn’t end there when the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into allegations of insider trading and securities fraud.
What do you think of the Urban Tea announcement? Let us know in the comments below.
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