Ebang, one of the leading manufacturers of cryptocurrency mining equipment, has filed to go public with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC). This is notably Ebang’s second attempt to go public, after having filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong that failed to transpire. Ebang is seeking to raise up to $100 million from a U.S. IPO, compared to as much as $1 billion the company was reportedly aiming to raise from a Hong Kong IPO. The general crypto mining market has cooled down after hitting all-time highs amid a crypto craze that peaked sometime in 2018. Ebang itself has been significantly affected, evidenced by 2019 revenues of $109 million compared to $319 million in the year before.

Ebang isn’t profitable, with its filing indicating $30 million in losses in 2019 and $24 million in the year before. As a ”risk factor”, the company apprises that its business is dependent on fluctuations in Bitcoin prices since its products are primarily designed for Bitcoin mining. In other words, a highly volatile Bitcoin market is precarious to Ebang’s business, and Bitcoin is known for being quite volatile. Another risk factor indicated is intense competition in the crypto mining market, which is obvious to even a crypto outsider. On the heels of the crypto-currency craze, many companies sought to capitalize on it by developing crypto mining hardware, Ebang being one of such companies. Ebang, although a top manufacturer of crypto mining hardware, faces fervid competition from other companies, most notably Bitmain and Canaan. Canaan went public last year but has seen its stock slump more than 50% amid slowed sales. Bitmain, the market leader by far, previously attempted to go public but didn’t follow through for uncertain reasons (although a slump in the general crypto market seems like a plausible reason).

Ebang was founded a decade ago in China. The company had 240 employees as of 2019 end.