Huatie HengAn – a Chinese construction subsidiary of high-profile, China-based production and manufacturing enterprise Huatie – has been sold off for less than 1/10th its value following massive losses suspected to be incurred from secret cryptocurrency mining operations.

According to crypto media in China, Huatie HengAn was purchased by an undisclosed buyer for CNY 12 million (USD 1.78 million). It was originally worth an estimated CNY 170 million (USD 25.26 million) last year – a drastic spiral in the value of more than 90%.

Huatie HengAn was registered as a construction firm but is suspected of covertly switching over to crypto mining, after it bought 36,500 hardware units listed as “servers” from crypto mining equipment makers Canaan and Ebang last year.  

According to 2018 year-end financial figures published by parent company Huatie, Huatie HengAn suffered a $14 million in losses for 2018, which climbed to $23 million by February 2019.

No publicly known reason has been revealed for the sale. However, if public speculation about the sale of Huatie HengAn due to crypto mining losses is true, this will make it the latest of many companies to suffer severely from the bearish crypto market of 2018.