Intchains Group Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to 8Chain's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Joining us today is Mr. Chao-Wei Yan, Chief Financial Officer of 8Chain. Mr. Yan will provide an overview of the company's performance and the details of the company's financial results. After that, we will conduct the question and answer session to take your questions. During the question and answer session, Mr. Yin will deliver the answers in Chinese, and the company's representative will provide corresponding English translations. Before we continue, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion will contain four looking statements. These four looking statements involve known and unknown risks, and uncertainties and are based on the company's current expectations and projections about future events that the company believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, and financial needs. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forelooking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances or changes in its expectations except as may be required by law. Although the company believes that the expectations expressed in these four looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct. And the company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results and encourages investors to review other factors that may affect its future results in the company's registration statement and other filings with the SEC. As a reminder, an investor presentation and a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the Inchains IR website at www.inchains.com. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Chao-Wei Yan, the company's CFO. Mr. Yan, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and everyone for joining InterChance earnings conference call for the second quarter of 2024. On today's call, we will provide an overview of our operational and financial performance. After that, we will conduct a Q&A session to take your questions. In reviewing the second quarter of 2024, the cryptocurrency market has experienced a series of remarkable market trends and movements. While Bitcoin and other liquid cryptocurrencies cooled slightly compared to the strong growth since the beginning of the year, the market still demonstrated significant growth compared to the same period last year, exerting a positive influence on the overall Web3 industry. The second quarter also saw a substantial increase in activity across the Web3 domain. driven not only by technological advancement within the industry, but also the growing interest and participation from both internal and external stakeholders. In March of this year, the computing equipment products that incorporate our latest chip for Alphim, Casper, Litecoin, and Dogecoin were officially launched for sale. As of June 30, 2024, cheap sales have exceeded 274,019 units. This outstanding performance is a clear testament to the market's strong recognition of our products. Moreover, the AL box and the KA box have also won the favor of individual users due to their exceptional hash rate and ultra-low power consumption. Driven by the impressive sales of these two products, the company's overall revenue in the second quarter increased by over 785% year-over-year. Furthermore, since the company adopted a strategy of holding cryptocurrency, primarily Ether, as a key long-term asset reserved for the group, we have closely monitored the volatility and momentum of the cryptocurrency market and optimize the timing for our asset allocation. As of June 30, 2024, the company has accumulated a total holding of 2,470 ETH. This result position not only enhances the company's financial flexibility and risk resilience, it also illustrates our strong confidence in blockchain infrastructure and the long-term value of ETH. Going forward, the company will continue to follow this asset holding strategy, making timely adjustments to our portfolio to capitalize to the opportunities we see within the Web3 industry. We will also closely monitor industry trade and review market risks, ensuring that our investment portfolio can adapt to the evolving market environment and create long-term value for our shareholders. As we move into the second half of 2024, we remain steadfast in our commitment to technological innovation and expanding our footprint within the industry value chain. In response to the evolving market and the technological landscape, we are proactively developing new Web3 products beyond mining machines to enhance efficiency and improve customer experience for our industry partners. We hope to accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology while supporting more enterprises in achieving their digital transformation goals. We are confident that as InterChain's positioning and business model become more defined, our company's growing potential and long-term value will be fully realized. Moving forward, InterChain will continue to lead the industry, collaborating with partners to drive robust growth across the sector. Now I will provide a brief financial overview of the second quarter 2024. Our revenue was 123 million RMB or 16.9 million US dollars for the second quarter 2024, representing an increase of 785% from 13.9 million RMB for the same period of 2023. The substantial growth was primarily driven by a significant increase in the average selling price of our ASIC chip products, which was attributed to the sales of our latest ASIC chip products, which commanded higher average selling price compared to the older ASIC chip products. Cost of revenue was 40.9 million RMB or 5.6 million US dollars for the second quarter of 2024. representing an increase of 33.2 percent from 30.7 million RMB for the same period of 2023. The increase was primarily caused by the impact of inventory write-down, prepayment write-down, and provision for commitment purchase commitment, which amounted to 30.3 million RMB or 4.2 million U.S. dollars for the second quarter of 2024. compared to 22.5 million RMB for the same period of 2023. The percentage increase in cost of revenue was substantially lower than the percentage increase in our revenue, which was primarily due to the higher gross margin for our latest asset-chip products. Our total operating expenses were 24.3 million RMB or 3.3 million US dollars for the second quarter. representing an increase of 40.2 percent from 17.3 million RMB for the same period of 2023. The increase was primarily due to an increase in research and development expenses, sales and marketing expenses, and general and administrative expenses. Research and development expenses increased by 47.6 percent to 13.2 million RMB or 1.8 million US dollars for the second quarter 2024, from 9 million RMB for the same period of 2023, primarily due to the increased share-based incentive expenses, labor costs, and expenses related to our R&D projects. Sales and marketing expenses increased by 48.5% to 1.9 million RMB or 0.3 million US dollars for the second quarter of 2024 from 1.3 million RMB for the same period of 2023, mainly driven by increased business promotion expenses, increased share-based incentive expenses, and labor costs. The GMA expenses increased by 25.5% to 8.9 million RMB or 1.2 million US dollars for the second quarter of 2024. from RMB 7.1 million RMB for the same period of 2023, mainly driven by the increased tax surcharges, as well as increased share-based incentive expenses and labor costs. Loss on fair value of cryptocurrency for the second quarter was 0.3 million RMB, or 0.04 million U.S. dollars, compared to nil the same period of 2023. Interest income decreased by 5.6% to 4.1 million RMB or $0.6 million for the second quarter of 2024 from 4.4 million RMB for the same period of 2023. Other income decreased to 0.1 million RMB or $0.02 million for the second quarter from 0.3 million RMB for the same period of 2023, mainly due to the decrease of government grants, which was partially offset by change in fair value of short-term investment. As a result of forward growing, we recorded a net income of 58.4 million RMB or 6.9 million US dollars for the second quarter of 2024, compared to the net loss of 20.5 million RMB for the same period of 2023. Basic and diluted net earning per ordinary share were 0.42 RMB or 0.06 US dollar for the second quarter of 2024. Compared to basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share of 0.17 RMB for the same period of 2023. Each ADS represents two of our company's ordinary shares. Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to updating you on our progress in the future. Now, I would like to take the discussion over the operator for any questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to match in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. There may be a short pause while we compile the Q&A roster.

Once again, that's star 11 for questions. We'll take our first question now from the line of Mark Palmer from Benchmark. Please ask your question, Mark.

Yes, thank you for taking my question and congratulations on the strong quarter. I wanted to ask you about the demand environment you are seeing for your ASIC chips and mining equipment. What are you seeing in terms of the impact of the more buoyant crypto markets thus far in 2024? And how is that translating into increased demand for the types of mining equipment for which you provide chips?

Okay, Mark.

Thank you for your question.

Let me have a short reply to you. Maybe I will answer in Chinese, and our staff will translate to you in English. This is the case. In the second quarter, our entire industry is not very good compared to the first quarter. However, because our products have certain... China China China China China China The whole of 2024 should be the rise of our company. That's what I want to say. Thank you.

Hello, Mark. Thanks for your questions. This is my pleasure to answer your questions. As we can see, in the second quarter of 2024, the crypto market is showing a low start, a low straight in the market, but our products show the main competitive in the industries, and our, especially for our AR box and the KA box, when the market organizations and the customers had a favorite on it. And also back to the current, the quarters, The market trend is a low down street. But we believe that they will show they have a strong confidence for our products and they have a strong financials, especially in the future.

Thank you. And one more question. The company... has meaningfully diversified both its business line and its geographic footprint through the acquisition of Gold Shell. What are your thoughts about the company's potential next steps in terms of further diversification into new product lines as it continues to focus on expanding its role within the Web3 infrastructure space.

After the acquisition of GoShop, the company has any business distribution and growth points. At the same time, after the acquisition of GoShop, the company has any development plans for the future of entering the Web3 and a process of promotion.

Thank you for your question. And actually, in this quarter, our revenue, our overseas revenue was achieved about 72%. Our revenue was 72% come from the overseas market. And compared with last quarter, that was a significant increase. Because last quarter, about 90%, over 90% revenue will come from China. Yeah, so this is the main advantage that we acquired the Gold Show brand because we have the ability to expand the overseas market. And furthermore, we believe that we will have other projects playing in other areas beyond the cryptocurrency mining machine. which will also go to your brand to make sales. So I believe in the future, our product line will be more diversified with the Gold Show brand. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone keypad. We'll take our next question from the line of Qianwen Wang from Finalink. Please go ahead. Hi, Charles.

I'm not sure whether you can hear me clearly, but I have one question for you. We observed that companies have served more ease during Q2. Could you please share more plans on ease as an asset allocation strategy?

This is my first question. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions. And I would like to translate your questions to our CFO. Thank you. Thank you for your question.

The company has a relatively open attitude towards all digital currencies, including ETH. So far, the company has a process and a strategy to hold ETH. Until this quarter, our last quarter, ETH's holding volume was more than 800. By this quarter, it has almost reached 2417 ETH. We will continue to stick to this strategy in 2024, and we will consider the financial situation of the entire market and the operating cash situation of the company. We will continue to make a continuous investment, and we should not sell in this year. Thank you.

This is our answers to your questions. Yes. Our companies in chance leverage our operating cash flows to accumulate Ether and other growing cryptocurrencies. From our first quarter of 2024, we hold the 825 Ether and up to the June 30th, 2024. The current holding the Ethereum is 2417. So basically our Ethereum asset strategy is considering our cash flows and continues to hold and accelerate the Ethereum and we will not sell Ethereum. Yes, so this is our answers for your questions.

Okay, thank you.

Great, thank you for your questions.

And I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I will just conclude this period and conference for today. Thank you once again for joining. Second quarter 2024 financial results and business updates comes in call today. Have a great day.