Chinese blockchain tech company sponsors Houston Rockets

Reports say that AntPool, a brand of Bitmain Technologies Inc, has sponsored the NBA team Houston Rockets for the 2018/2019 season. The news was broken out on September 19. 

Bitmain is a Chinese technology company headquartered in Beijing. Its main business is research and design of low-energy consumption and high-speed tailor-made microchip and has designed multiple ASIC tailor-made microchips. It also offers blockchain services, including BTC.com, Antminer and AntPool. 

The company has subsidiaries in Hong Kong, California, Tel Aviv-Yafo and Amsterdam in addition to several research centers spread across China. It quotes New York Times’ comment of the company on its official website: “the world’s most valuable bitcoin company”. 

AntPool provides “mining” services to harvest different blockchain currencies. Its sponsorship of Houston Rockets has been first reported by a few Chinese media including Tencent and 36 Kr. 

Tencent writes that AntPool has announced earlier that America would be the first overseas country to expand their services globally. 36 Kr reports that the aim of the sponsorship is to promote AntPool’s services, especially BCH, a kind of blockchain currency. The two media both mention that AntPool is going to pay the sponsorship fee with BCH and it is the first time for an NBA team to accept sponsorship fees in blockchain currency. 

More details of the sponsorship are yet to be released. 

Reference: QQ Finance