EOS[1] developer Block.one[2] has secured investments from billionaire PayPal[3] co-founder Peter Thiel[4] and crypto mining[5] hardware billionaire Jihan Wu of Bitmain[6], according to an official announcement[7] today, July 16.
Block.one is the creator of the EOSIO software, a blockchain protocol that aims to support decentralized apps (dApps[8]) on an industrial scale. The protocol’s native cryptocurrency EOS is currently ranked fifth in the world[9] with a market capitalization of $7.1 bln.
Other notable co-investors of Block.one’s latest funding round –– of which the exact total is yet to be revealed –– include two major hedge fund billionaires, Moore Capital[10]’s Louis Bacon and Brevan Howard[11]’s Alan Howard.
PayPal co-founder Thiel is rumored[12] to have invested up to $20 million in Bitcoin[13] (BTC) through his venture capital firm Founders Fund, and is known for being the first outside investor[14] in Facebook[15]. Founders, as Bloomberg notes[16] today, was an early backer of SpaceX[17] and Airbnb[18].
Thiel is a long-standing[19] Bitcoin bull who has been steadily investing in the crypto space, most recently backing[20] a U.S. stablecoin[21] project dubbed Reserve[22].
For his part, Wu is the co-founder of China-headquartered[23] crypto mining hardware giant Bitmain, which is said to occupy[24] a 75 percent share of the BTC mining[25] chip market. Wu’s holdings alongside co-founder Micree Zhan are said to be worth a
