NCC is exiting the Chinese market to focus on making digital currencies accessible to everyone globally. This acquisition by a Hong Kong–based blockchain investment fund is a milestone for NCC and will allow NCC to focus on global digital currency adoption.
NCC, located in China and founded in 2011, was the world’s oldest bitcoin exchange until it closed in September 2017 under pressure from the Chinese government. It changed business focus to its international pool, wallet and exchange markets.
“Today’s acquisition is an incredible milestone for NCC that validates all of our hard work over the past few years,” said Bobby Lee, CEO and co-founder of NCC, in a statement. “I’m very excited about the resources this gives NCC to move faster and aggressively grow our businesses in 2018 and beyond.”
Calvin Cheng, an advisor to the Hong Kong investment fund that acquired NCC, stated: “We’re humbled that we were able to acquire NCC. NCC has an unparalleled brand and reputation, and we look forward to taking it [to] greater heights of success internationally.”
The three major products from NCC include NCC Pool, Mobi and NCC Exchange, which will be led by Denver Zhao, Mark Ma and Aaron Choi, respectively.
NCC Pool is a digital currency pool that operates on a pay-per-share model that guarantees miners a return on investment regardless of whether or not the pool mines a block. Zhao, senior vice president of NCC Pool — who has an MBA from the University of Strathclyde in addition to years of sales experience — said that the acquisition would allow NCC to realize its vision of global digital currency adoption.
“We now have the resources to more fully realize our vision of safeguarding and stabilizing digital currencies’ blockchains,” Zhao said. “Going forward, we’ll provide better, fairer, more transparent, and more comprehensive mining services to our customers worldwide.”
Mobi is a digital wallet app running on iOS and Android, with a web portal also available, that allows for the storage, conversion and transfer of over 100 currencies, and which “now has customers from over 180+ countries,” according to Ma, vice president of NCC Mobi.
Ma, who has several years of product design experience at Alibaba among other companies, said, “The capital injection we received today gives us a boost towards reaching our goal to grab a dominant market share in the payments and digital currency industries of each of those countries.”
NCC Exchange is a NC-USD exchange with seven years of history in providing a simple-to-use interface that is appropriate for casual as well as dedicated traders. NCC said their exchange services will benefit greatly from vice president Choi’s startup management experience at RockYou, Tapjoy, Chinapex and other companies, to provide the most accessible digital currency services going forward.
Choi said, “The acquisition gives us resources to more effectively apply our unparalleled industry knowledge to provide customers with the most accessible digital currency services.”
