Crypto Unit Earns $2.3M for Japan’s GMO Internet Group in Q2

Japan’s GMO Internet Group earned 255 million yen (around $2.3 million) from its crypto-related businesses in the second quarter of its fiscal 2018 as crypto-related net revenue surged to 2.6 billion (around $23.5 million).

In the previous three months, the internet services giant booked revenues of 630 million yen from its crypto activities and reported a net loss of 730 million in this segment, as per the quarterly report. In the comparable 2017 quarter, GMO’s crypto business generated revenues of 960 million yen and net profits of 530 million yen.

The GMOCoin cryptocurrency exchange brought in revenues of 1.42 billion yen during the period under report, which represents a 7.3-fold increase from the previous quarter. As the company noted, the platform is building a revenue base that is not affected by price fluctuations.

The number of customer accounts has been growing steadily to reach 177,000 in one year. In the second quarter, GMOCoin saw total trading volumes of 497 billion yen.

GMO’s crypto mining business also did quite well, at least in terms of net revenue, which surged 91.8% quarter-on-quarter to 1.17 billion yen. However, the segment posted a loss of 360 million yen. In comparison, revenue in the previous was significantly lower (610 million yen), but the business made 190 million yen in profit.

As for the number of Bitcoins mined and the hashrate, GMO reported that both have been growing. The number of wallet users on GMO’s blockchain has also been rising, seeing a 70.5% increase year-on-year to 26.98 million.

The company also said it was changing priorities for its crypto mining business. Until now, the most important segment of it lay with in-house and cloud mining. However, with the introduction of GMO’s own crypto mining machines, selling them would become top priority, with in-house and cloud mining coming in second and third, respectively.