Author: Lean View
Recently, NASDAQ-listed company Nano Labs (Nasdaq: NA) announced a financing plan totaling 36.25 million USD, with participants including Distributed Capital, Longling Capital, Golden Forest Management Limited, and others.
Nano Labs, a micro-technology company, listed on NASDAQ in July 2022. Nano Labs was founded by Mr. Kong Jianping, who also served as the co-chairman of the original Canaan Creative, which successfully listed on NASDAQ under his leadership, becoming the first publicly listed company in the global blockchain industry. This also marked the historic moment of blockchain industry companies 'eating crab' in the traditional securities market. Kong Jianping has been involved with Bitcoin since 2012 and has been deeply engaged in the industry for over a decade, while Nano Labs' second-largest shareholder is another legendary figure in the crypto field, 'Forest Man' - Sun Qifeng, founder of the world's earliest Bitcoin magazine 'One Bitcoin', who included Bitcoin with every magazine purchase.
A significant highlight of this financing is that several capital giants in the crypto industry have participated in it in large proportions. It is not ruled out that they may strategically participate in the development of Nano Labs rather than simply making a financial investment. Additionally, the Pre-IPO round has already invested in Nano Labs through HashKey Group and the family office fund of former Huobi founder Li Lin. It can be said that after this round of financing, Nano Labs has gathered numerous top giants from the native Chinese crypto circle, forming a lineup that can be described as a 'Chinese crypto dream team.' The Chinese community has a relatively advantageous and influential presence in the crypto industry, from hash power share to BTC holdings, from ecological layout to application development.
This round of financing has a relatively large proportion of new capital, and the strategic shareholders introduced have mostly been deeply involved in the crypto industry for many years, possessing deep industry insights and having top industry resources and great influence. It is foreseeable that Nano Labs will surely face a significant strategic transformation and change in the future.
Therefore, since last year, the company's chairman Kong Jianping has been active on the front lines of Bitcoin ecosystem construction, supporting the development of many important Bitcoin ecological infrastructures globally through investments in Satoshi Labs and BTC liquidity protocols and organizing globally influential industry summits in the Bitcoin space. He has accumulated significant influence and industry prestige in the Bitcoin ecosystem. After this round of financing, Nano is expected to undergo a comprehensive strategic transformation, focusing on BTC as its core business, purchasing, holding, and managing BTC, participating in BTC ecosystem development, liquidity support, and more.
Although many publicly listed companies have announced this year that they will purchase Bitcoin as reserve assets, most of these companies aim primarily for financial investment or to ride the BTC concept wave. Companies that truly focus on BTC as their main business direction, with a profound understanding of BTC and the crypto industry, are actually very few. The most typical company in the U.S. stock market directly focused on BTC as its main business direction is MicroStrategy, which has become a 'hot potato' in the U.S. stock market this year. Since the beginning of this bull market, its stock price has surged from around 30 USD to a peak of 543 USD, an increase of over 15 times, with its highest market value exceeding 100 billion USD, and its current market value is also over 80 billion USD.
MicroStrategy has innovated its investment and financing model to hold a large amount of Bitcoin. Since August 2020, MicroStrategy has invested idle funds into Bitcoin, becoming the first publicly listed company to implement a Bitcoin funding strategy globally. Since then, it has continued to buy, and as of December 1, 2024, it and its subsidiaries hold approximately 402,100 Bitcoins, with a total purchase cost of around 23.4 billion USD, making it an important holder of Bitcoin and influencing the market supply and demand as well as price trends to some extent.
MicroStrategy has funded its increased Bitcoin holdings through convertible bonds and other means. Its convertible bonds are mainly medium to long-term zero-interest bonds, with the options for stock conversion and cash repayment at MicroStrategy’s discretion. This lowers financing costs and debt default risks, while closely linking stock prices with Bitcoin price fluctuations, achieving triple arbitrage with stocks, bonds, and currencies, providing a new source of funds and operating model for Bitcoin investment.
Similar to MicroStrategy, Nano Labs will also focus on BTC as its main business direction in the future. Based on the strong resource background of the company's shareholders in the native crypto field and their profound industry insights, it is even possible to expect Nano Labs to have more groundbreaking layouts and strategies in the BTC ecosystem. Kong Jianping, as an OG in the industry, has been a firm believer in BTC since entering the crypto space in 2012 and is also a well-known predictor of Bitcoin prices, with a very deep understanding of industry development. Ten years ago, he expressed in an interview that Bitcoin would eventually break through 100,000 USD and advised against selling Bitcoin within a decade when the price was still around 50 USD. During the Bitcoin bear market cycle in 2019, he reiterated that Bitcoin would break through 100,000 USD, stating, 'The only obstacle for Bitcoin to break through 100,000 USD is time.' This statement was a widely influential viewpoint at the time when Bitcoin was still below 5,000 USD. Distributed Capital, founded by Shen Bo and Wanxiang, is one of the two main early investment and incubation institutions for the current second-largest cryptocurrency, ETH. As one of the longest-standing investment institutions in the crypto industry, they have participated in the investment of numerous leading public chains and projects, while HashKey Group has also secured the first compliant exchange license in Hong Kong. One of the leaders in China’s mobile internet sector, Longling Capital's founder, Meitu Group's chairman Cai Wensheng, is also an early participant in cryptocurrency and a believer in Bitcoin. It is rumored that influential veterans and institutions in the crypto industry, such as Kevin's CGV Capital, Waterdrip Capital's founder Jademont, and MetaEra's founder Vito, also participated in this round of financing.
In terms of grasping macro trends and breaking through macro challenges, Kong Jianping has generally been able to make accurate judgments and even participate in promoting changes and breakthroughs in industry patterns. Not only does he possess long-term predictive capabilities regarding Bitcoin prices and has successfully led Canaan Creative to challenge for the title of the world's first blockchain stock, but Kong Jianping also played a very important role in the 'crypto new policy' released in Hong Kong in October 2022, proposing a large number of targeted policy suggestions across multiple fields, and serving as a communicator, coordinator, and even an educator. Now, as an industry representative, Kong Jianping has also been appointed by the Hong Kong SAR government as a director of the Hong Kong Cyberport (an important platform for developing Web3 and crypto finance), and as a member of the Hong Kong government’s third-generation internet group, playing a significant role in promoting Hong Kong to become a crypto finance center in the Far East. The influential financing and major adjustments in Nano Labs' business direction are likely the beginning of Kong Jianping's new round of strategic layout.
After this financing is completed, based on the latest closing price, Nano's market value is less than 200 million USD, compared to MicroStrategy's current market value of over 80 billion USD, indicating a severely undervalued state. Once Nano officially starts its business direction centered on Bitcoin, the Chinese 'crypto dream team' led by Kong Jianping is likely to exert efforts from multiple angles and fields, potentially replacing MicroStrategy as one of the most important purchasing forces for BTC in the spot market. Conversely, Nano will also become one of the biggest beneficiaries of this bull market. Given the major shareholders' deep layout in the Bitcoin ecosystem, Nano is likely to have advantages in asset management and native Bitcoin ecosystem operations that other listed companies, including MicroStrategy, cannot match, including achieving high BTC risk-free returns through the establishment of a multi-layer infrastructure liquidity system, etc. These require a profound understanding and recognition of BTC itself, as well as a deep understanding, participation, and extensive industry resources for various BTC infrastructures. This gives Nano the opportunity to become a unique target in the capital market with barriers to entry, and it is not ruled out that it will surpass MicroStrategy to become a leading listed company focused on Bitcoin.
On December 5th, BTC broke through 100,000 USD. Nano Labs Chairman Kong Jianping tweeted:
In 2019, I proposed a viewpoint at the New Era Mining Summit: the only obstacle for Bitcoin to break through 100,000 USD is time. At that time, Bitcoin was hovering around a few thousand USD, and many people did not believe this would happen. Just recently, on December 5, 2024, Bitcoin broke through 100,000 USD, and in the future, Bitcoin will break through 1 million USD; the only obstacle remains time!
Now, with Trump, known as the 'crypto president,' winning the U.S. election, the U.S., as the leading economic entity in the global technology and financial industry, has fully shifted towards a crypto-friendly stance. Before this, in early 2024, a large number of BTC ETFs had already been approved for issuance. Following Trump's victory, the U.S. federal government and the Federal Reserve's plans to reserve Bitcoin have been put on the agenda. Some state governments and state federal reserves have already rushed to pass bills and are about to start implementing reserve plans. Once these plans begin to be implemented, they will have a significant leading demonstrative effect globally, prompting many related countries and emerging nations to follow suit. Coupled with the continued investments from numerous publicly listed companies and asset management giants holding substantial funds, the limited total supply of BTC will likely face a massive surge in global consensus buying power.
Perhaps, as Kong Jianping said, everything has just begun. The breakthrough of Bitcoin at 1 million USD is just a matter of time. As Nano serves as his flagship aircraft carrier, with the joint support of numerous 'crypto dream team' leaders, the great voyage of BTC is about to set sail.
