BRIEF: Cango mines 569.9 bitcoins in December

Auto trader Cango Inc. (CANG.US) said on Thursday it mined 569.9 bitcoins in December, its first full month of mining the cryptocurrency following its move into the sector a month earlier. At the latest bitcoin price of about $97,000, the amount of newly minted cryptocurrency for the month would be worth about $55.3 million.

Cango said it mined an average of 18.4 bitcoins per day in December, down slightly from the 18.9 per day in November when it started its mining business. The company spent most of its life in China’s auto industry, first as an auto financier and later as an auto trader, before entering the bitcoin mining business in November after its purchase of $256 million worth of mining machines.

Those machines, mostly based in the U.S., gave Cango a deployed hashrate of 32 EH/s in December, unchanged from November, when the company mined 363.9 bitcoins, making it one of the world’s top three miners. The company has said it also plans to buy another $144 million worth of machines with 18 EH/s of capacity, which would boost its deployed hashrate by 56%.

Cango held 933.8 bitcoins at the end of December. The company has yet to sell any of its bitcoins, nor has it commented on its strategy for future sales. Its combined holdings would be worth more than $90 million at current prices, many times larger than the 27 million yuan ($3.7 million) in revenue the company reported in last year’s third quarter.

Cango’s stock rose 14% on Thursday and has nearly tripled since late October since it disclosed its move into bitcoin mining.

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