The Bitfury Group, a well-known name in the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, may soon also be known as a company dedicated to data mining.
In an interview with Reuters, company co-founder and CEO Valery Vavilov said that Bitfury recently launched a division dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) in order to analyse the huge amount of data in the world and to gain value from it.
The use of blockchain technology
Describing data as “the next oil”, Vavilov said that 98% of all data in the world are still not being used.
Although he provided little detail, he added that the data analysis will also be based on the use of blockchain technology.
“We also need to trust that data so that’s where blockchain comes in”.
Bitfury’s AI division is currently in the research and development phase and is not yet fully operational.
According to Vavilov, once there will be a clearer view of potential use cases, the new division can be fully operational at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2020.
BitFury’s IPO
Last November Bitfury, a company also mindful of the environment, closed an $80 million financing round led by the venture capital company Korelya Capital.
A month earlier, according to Bloomberg’s sources, the company would have considered launching an initial public offering (IPO) through a listing on the Amsterdam, London or Hong Kong stock exchange.
According to some sources, Bitfury could be valued at $3 to $5 billion if this IPO were to be made public within the next two years.
At the head of the new unit, the company has appointed expert Fabrizio Del Maffeo, former vice president and managing director of AAEON Technology Europe, a company that focuses on AI and IoT belonging to the ASUS Group.
