'Energy Efficient Blockchain' Chia Network Raises $61M With IPO In Sight

Amidst a growing narrative for more energy-efficient blockchain networks, Chia Network Inc has raised $61 million in its latest round of funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Richmond Global Ventures.

What Happened: According to a report from Bloomberg, the latest investment round valued the digital currency platform at $500 million.

Other high-profile investors like Breyer Capital, Slow Ventures, True Ventures, Cygni Capital, Collab+Currency, DHVC, and AngelList founder Naval Ravikant also participated in the round.

According to the firm’s President and Chief Operating Officer Gene Hoffman, the fresh funding will be “rocket fuel” for the company to become a trading and payment system used by governments, banks, and other institutions.

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

Why It Matters: Chia was founded in 2017 by BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen with the goal of being a more “energy-efficient” blockchain network.

Chia’s Proof of Space and Time consensus algorithm is intended to be an upgrade over Bitcoin’s Proof of Work mining algorithm, according to the project’s whitepaper, which describes Chia as “green money for a digital world.”

“Instead of consuming massive amounts of electricity and wasteful single-purpose ASIC hardware to validate transactions, Proof of Space leverages the over-provisioned exabytes of disk space that already exist in the world today,” said Chia.

Richmond Global Ventures managing partner David Frazee, who is set to join the Chia board, called Chia’s native token XCH “auditable, secure and regulatorily complaint,” making it user-friendly for monetary authorities and multinationals.

“Chia is what Bitcoin would look like if it was designed with knowledge from the last 13 years,” he said.