There might be a major deal being made in the Bitcoin ecosystem in the next few days: a deal that mixes the names of BitSynCom LLC’s founder, Yifu Guo, and a Swiss private equity fund, which is allegedly about to invest $200 million to ensure the brand Avalon emerges as the leader in the mining technology race.
Bitcoin Examiner has been gathering rumors around the web and was informed by an anonymous source about this highly secretive meeting, which is set to occur this Monday or Tuesday (August 5 or 6).
Let’s go back in time, when it all started. Yifu Guo was part of a team based in Beijing (China), called Gridchip. This group developed the first ASIC Bitcoin miner at 110nm. A second chip at 55nm was also designed, but the team fell apart after that. At the time, Yifu Guo had to get a new foundry to turn his chip design project into reality. This was when he attracted the attention of a low-key Zurich-based private equity fund, which name we can’t reveal or we would be exposing our source.
However, the name of the umbrella fund for this project is The Phoenix Fund/Phoenix Emerging Markets. A quick online search showed us the connection between this fund and Andrew Laurus, who according to his Twitter account is “Emerging Markets Manager for Private Equity Fund”, with his location divided between Zurich (Switzerland) and London (UK). He was connected to Lehman, as a Senior Government Bond Executive, and is currently “taking time off for Bitcoin Mining project”, like he reveals in Twitter. Never heard of him? Well, people like the famous entrepreneur Kim Dotcom or the economist and economical advisor to the UK Liberal Democratic Party Fred Harrison already have, since they follow him on Twitter.
Our source points out Andrew Laurus as the man making the connections in this deal. Also, in a public conversation on Twitter, another user refers Laurus’ work with “the Tavistock bunch” and with someone named Joe in the Bahamas. Make the connection and you get the Tavistock Group owned by the billionaire Joe Lewis, who allegedly owns Phoenix Fund/Phoenix Emerging Markets, according to our source.
However, Andrew Laurus is just one of the links in this story, explains our source, adding that the business occurring this week is a three way deal between Taiwan microchip manufacturer TSMC, Bitsyncom LLC and The Phoenix Fund. The deal is allegedly being signed in the headquarters of TSMC Europe, located in Amsterdam, and Avalon is getting an investment of $200 million through the fund that is composed of six people, four of them billionaires. Again, their names cannot be revealed, we only can say that five of them are British and one of them is from Dubai. All made their fortunes in Forex trading and are well-known in the banking field.
But if you found these previous revelations interesting, hear this: thanks to this agreement, the new venture might be getting 20nm technology, spared by TSMC, that will most likely be included in the next generation of Avalon miners. According to our anonymous source, “this will effectively put all other mining makers out of business, they are bringing a Porsche to a race where only Fords currently exist”.
Again, these are rumors and information provided by an anonymous source that we can only hope to confirm in the next few days, although the level of secrecy around this deal suggests that the venture will be kept in secret for a while.
UPDATE (August 5, 22:30) – Questioned by several media, the entrepreneur and billionaire Joe Lewis has denied any connection with The Phoenix Fund or Andrew Laurus. Like Bitcoin Examiner specifically said all along, this isn’t a confirmed story and we keep waiting for more details to come up.
UPDATE (August 6, 12:40) – Andrew Laurus published a tweet today announcing that he will be posting a statement about this issue on Thursday. The statement will be covering Bitcoin, the press reports and also Joe Lewis.
UPDATE (August 8, 10:41) – As promised, Andrew Laurus spoke today, but he didn’t make a statement about the matter. Instead, he twitted: “received today communication from #joelewis lawyers Alston & Bird LLP Atlanta / re: Phoenix fund will postpone comment until matter settled”.
http://www.teribuhl.com/2013/08/06/the-mess-the-wsj-made-famed-trader-joe-lewis-not-investing-in-bitcoins/
This is a story about a different Avalon which has been misreported. More research next time pls guys 😉
Didn’t $200M ring a bell when it only takes approx USD10M to develop 28nm tech?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268081.0
FYI this article is utterly misinformed…Avalon is a venture capital group that just raised $200m…not the same company.
Developing smaller size dies is very expensive and the power saving benefits are marginal compared to bigger die sizes. That is why ASICMINER still uses 130nm chips which is an ancient technology (10 years old). But they can churn out as much chips as they want at a fast pace and at a low cost. That is much more valuable than having the latest tech but with lenghty pre-order periods and at a great expense. That may look better marketingwise but since mining Bitcoin is a fast paced game, getting there early is key. Sadly up till now ASICMINER seems to be the only company that has figured this out, which is why they can charge premium prices.
“this will effectively put all other mining makers out of business”
Well putting all other miners out of business = bring centralization to bitcoin damaging it to the point of maybe killing it.
This is probably the most unqualified bunch of crap I have read in ages. Amazing that anyone would post 100% total rumors that do not even make sense. Either that, or we are talking the dumbest private equity fund in history.