Blocktrail Acquired By Bitmain To Bolster BTC.com Service

Acquisitions in the Bitcoin industry are not unusual, albeit they do seem to occur more often in the past year or so. Bitmain, a company, best known for its Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturing capabilities, has acquired Blocktrail, a company focusing on Bitcoin data and analytics. It remains unknown as to what this acquisition will lead to.

What Does Bitmain Want With Blocktrail?

At first glance, there does not seem to be a reason for a hardware mining manufacturer to buy an analytics company. Then again, Blocktrail provides a ton of analytics about the Bitcoin ecosystem, including mining statistics, pools being used, and so on. Bitmain is looking to strengthen its position in the analytics field.

Very few people realize Bitmain is also running its own block explorer and analytics service. BTC.com was launched in September of 2015 and has been quite a success story so far. Bolstering this existing service is a difficult task, and it is possible the Blocktrail acquisition will play a role in this regard.

Interestingly enough, the acquisition amount was not disclosed to the media at this time. That is not entirely surprising either, as those types of details are usually unveiled at a later stage. That is, assuming the companies ever decide to divulge that information. Not that it should matter all that much, though.

Acquisitions are occurring more often than they have ever done before. Some experts may argue the year 2016 is the year of consolidation in the cryptocurrency industry. Whether or not his is the case, remains to be seen. One thing is certain, though: a lot of companies are looking to bolster their offerings.

All three Blocktrail employees will join the Bitmain team moving forward. Working on the BTC.com project will be beneficial to these three individuals as well, as they can gain more visibility for their efforts through this platform. Developing technology is one aspect, but gaining recognition for the effort is something else entirely.

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