'Eco Friendly' Crypto Chia Valued At $500M In Funding Round Amid Heightened Bitcoin Scrutiny, Said To Eye IPO

Chia Network Inc, the company associated with the eponymous Chia Network (XCH) token, was valued at $500 million in a recent funding round, Bloomberg reported Monday.

What Happened: The platform founded by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen raised $61 million from investors such as Richmond Global Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, as per Bloomberg.

Breyer Capital, Slow Ventures, True Ventures, Cygni Capital, Naval Ravikant, Collab+Currency, and DHVC were reportedly some of the other venture capitalists that participated in the funding round.

Chia’s Chief Operating Officer and President Gene Hoffman termed the fresh funding as “rocket fuel” for furthering the company’s goal of emerging as a trading and payment system used by government, banks, and others, according to Bloomberg.

“Our goal has always been to go public relatively quickly as that will significantly clarify our regulatory environment and allow customers to use currency to hedge public market volatility, which is different from other coins,” said Hoffman.

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Why It Matters: Chia’s platform touts itself as an “eco-friendly alternative” to Proof of Work, the technology that underpins the apex cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC). 

Bitcoin’s impact on the environment is under scrutiny with Tesla Inc TSLA suspending payments in the cryptocurrency citing such concerns. 

Some authorities in China have also raised environmental concerns as a key reason for calling of curbs on the world’s largest cryptocurrency. China’s moves have led to the latest crumbling of the cryptocurrency market.

XCH meanwhile, has been buoyant of late and traded 19.06% higher at $839.95 at press time over a 24-hour period. XCH has risen 7.46% against BTC in the same period but fallen 3.17% against Ethereum (ETH).

See Also: How to Buy Ethereum (ETH)

BTC traded 9.9% higher at $38,465.98 at press time, while ETH traded 23.29% higher at $2,598.05 over a 24-hour period leading up to press time.

XCH is still trading 56.68% lower than its all-time high of $1,934.51, which it touched on May 3.

Even so, the increase in the price of Chia has translated into heightened demand for hard drives, which are used in mining the coin. Consequently, pushing up shares of hard disk makers such as Seagate Technology Holdings Plc STX and Western Digital Corporation WDC, according to Decrypt.

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