Two out of three world-leading mining hardware manufacturers, Canaan Creative and Ebang International, have encountered roadblocks in floating on the Hong Kong stock market. Essentially, in addition to their own potential risks, the gradually changed regulatory environment in Hong Kong can also be a disruptive issue.

While Bitmain, the demonstrated Chinese Bitcoin mining giant, is still in an ongoing IPO vetting process. For now though, Bitamin seems to be the ‘most likely to succeed’ in IPO, but variables still exist.

In late 2017, most blockchain and cryptocurrency-related companies have gathered huge profit from the bull market and developed at a rapid speed. Whereupon, led by the Avalon maker Canaan, the world’s top three mining equipment makers have all decided to file for IPOs in Hong Kong in just four months from May to September in 2018.

Unfortunately, the thing doesn’t work out that way. It was reported that Canaan has let its application for a Hong Kong IPO of at least $400 million lapses on November 14, when the firm’s filling surpassed its six-month lifespan, according to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx).

Meanwhile, it is less likely for Ebang to complete its listing as the firm has filed its IPO application on June 24 — only one week left due to the six-month deadline.

The continues failure in IPO application of blockchain-related companies makes people wondering whether its due to those firms own problems, or is the HKEx still concerned about the entire crypto industry?

According to Caijing, China’s leading financial news web portal, Canaan and Ebang’s IPO frustration are more due to their own potential financial risks.

It was reported that Ebang has also been involved in a P2P financial crime in late October. To Canaan, although it remains unknown in its IPO failure, it’s listing attempt failed for several times in the domestic stock market, which reflects its own deficiency.

According to sources, Bitmain is most likely to be the first ever China-based blockchain-related listed company in history as its overwhelming strength.

Although Canaan and Ebang are also leading mining giants, there are huge gaps between them and Bitmain. The global market share of Bitmain, Canaan, and Ebang are 74%, 6.3%, and 4.5% respectively. There is no doubt that Bitmain dominate the crypto mining market and it has a higher chance to go public than Canaan and Ebang.

Hong Kong still shows a welcoming attitude towards blockchain. The HKEx has also put a lot of efforts in blockchain development. However, due to the market volatility and the bear market that has plagued the crypto space in 2018, HKEx may be more cautious about crypto-related companies. In order to get a listing approval from the bourse, Bitmain may have to justify it is sustainable.