Nchain reportedly created the largest acquisition in Bitcoin history with $300 million, with Australian “Satoshi Nakamoto” serving as chief scientist

This week, Nchain, a “blockchain technology research and development organization,” announced that it had been acquired by high-tech private equity fund SICAV. The company also claimed that the deal was the largest acquisition in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry to date, but did not provide any basis for this claim. In addition, Craig Wright, an Australian who once claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, also served as the company's chief scientist.

Nchain claims this is the largest acquisition in Bitcoin history

Nchain, a blockchain company, announced that SICAV, an EU-regulated investment fund, has acquired the company. It also claimed that Nchain owns multiple companies and has a team of more than 60 members, including scientific researchers, engineers and other professionals.

The company’s press release did not mention the amount of the transaction, but people familiar with the matter said that the amount involved in the transaction is far more than the venture capital funds obtained by 21 Inc. If this news is true, Nchain will be the largest acquisition transaction in the Bitcoin and blockchain industry to date.

According to CNBC, a person familiar with the matter said that Nchain received $ 3亿in funds, but did not specify when the transaction was completed. Nchain unilaterally responded that the transaction only involved fiat currency, but did not mention the actual transaction amount.

The company also said the venture capital fund will provide Nchain with resources to continue researching and developing distributed ledger technology.

“As we learned about Nchain’s capabilities through this acquisition, it became clear to me that we are in the new digital age after the personal computer and the Internet,” said Arthur Davis, Director of Nchain Holdings Ltd. “This changes everything and leads us to the ‘Internet of Transactions’.”

A mysterious company

The reporter searched Nchain using Google, but did not find much useful information. When we typed Nchain.com (or the similar Nchain.co) into the browser, the information we could find was also very limited.

Arthur Davis told reporters:

“To date, Nchain has had essentially zero customer-facing activity, and over the next year, that will change. To date, Nchain has focused solely on research over the past decade and developing the assets acquired from Dr. Wright and creating new intellectual property and assets, some of which have been patented.”

Additionally, the Nchain website does not list any of its team members, previous projects, or clients. The entire website consists of three pages and only has one press release. Despite this, the company’s press release claims that it employs more than 60 people.

Arthur Davis explained:

"The entire organization currently operates in a state of secrecy. Employees are not allowed to list their identities on LinkedIn or even on their business cards. We will consider coming out of this stealth mode, but have not yet decided how to proceed.
One public piece of information that you can look up is Allan Pedersen, you can see this at companieshouse.co.uk, which explicitly mentions him as a company director of the UK branch of nChain Ltd. There's also a public mention of an executive, Anthony Rowland.
”

"While the transaction value was not disclosed, we believe this acquisition is the largest to date in the industry."

Nchain says it has acquired Wright’s bitcoin and blockchain patents

Another interesting part of the acquisition is Nchain’s relationship with Craig Wright, an Australian scientist who has claimed in the past to be Satoshi Nakamoto. According to the company, Craig Wright has taken on the role of “chief scientist” at the company.

According to an exclusive interview with Reuters, Nchain, formerly known as EITC Holdings, claims to own Wright’s bitcoin and blockchain patents. However, Nchain explained that Wright does not hold a stake in the company and that the patents were previously purchased by the company, but the total amount involved was not disclosed.

"Dr. Wright has never served as a director or shareholder of Nchain," Nchain officials responded in an email. "Dr. Wright has never invested in Nchain and does not hold any shares in Nchain. All Nchain shares have been sold. Nchain's business includes Nchain Limited, a UK entity, and Nchain Holdings Limited, an entity located in Antiguan."

Focus on on-chain expansion and neutral standards

Additionally, the blockchain R&D organization said it plans to propose on-chain scaling solutions that will not reduce decentralization, adhere to Bitcoin’s original vision, and remove the Bitcoin blockchain’s artificial block size limit (temporarily set to 1MB) to increase scalability and usage.

The Nchain team also revealed that it will advocate for the formation of a neutral standards organization to coordinate and manage Bitcoin protocols and technical standards.

What do you think of Nchain? Feel free to share your thoughts.