Digital currency mining operation Bitdir Technologies has bought a high-security storage and display facility in Singapore for $28.4 million for Freeport, sources said. Bitdir chairman Jihan Wu confirmed in a text message following reports that the mining company had acquired Le Freeport.
Bitdir bought the high security vault Le Freeport from Yves Bouvier, DBS
Jihan Wu, the co-founder of Bitmain Technologies, has since left the company to form a company called Matrixport and is also the chairman of Bitdir Technologies. In a report published by Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, BitShares paid $US40 million ($28.4 million) for the high-security storage facility known as Freeport.
The vault was originally built similar to the high security vaults in Luxembourg and Geneva. Freeport has been dubbed “Singapore’s Fort Knox for art and collectibles”. Freeport was originally built for S$100 million and its recent acquisition of Bitdir paid off a large amount of debt owed to creditors such as DBS and former owner Yves Bouvier.
The vault has been available for sale since 2017 and the high-security storage facility has many well-known corporate clients. Prior to 2018, luxury auction house Christie’s once leased a third Freeport warehouse. Deutsche Bank at one point held Freeport’s holdings of more than $8.9 billion in gold bullion.
Bloomberg’s Ranjeta Pakiam, Chanyapurn Chanjaroen and Zeping Huang of Bouvier and Freeport’s other shareholders “received S$5 million from the sale,” they said. However, the sources did not say what BitDeer plans to do with the facility, but following the initial report, Jihan Wu confirmed the Freeport purchase in writing with Bloomberg authors.
Last year, BitDeer made several business moves, such as investing $25 million in a facility in Texas in May 2021. Five days later, Bitdir announced cloud hosting, which “allows retail miners to monetize with 1 mining machine. “
At the end of June 2021, BitDeer unveiled the company’s Antbox products, and last October, the company introduced FileCoin mining services. The sources, who disclosed the recent acquisition of Freeport in Singapore, also noted that Bitdir is going public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) through a blank check company.
Bitdir is not the only crypto firm to purchase a highly secured vault or bunker system. The Xapo mine in the Swiss mountains is just as extravagant, and millionaires are said to have stored their bitcoins there. Last week, reports indicated that bitcoin mining operation Arsenal Digital Holdings (OTCMKTS: ADHI ) acquired an underground data center outside of Houston. Some people suspect that the collapse of Westland Oil’s famous two-story underground campus was a tanker.
What do you think of BitDeer ‘Singapore’s Fort Knox’ otherwise known as Le Freeport? Let us know what you think about this in the comments section below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Editorial Photo Credit: SGPMX
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