Asian online gambling operator 500.com is once again attempting to diversify its revenue streams, this time by getting into Bitcoin mining.

On Monday, the Nasdaq-listed 500.com announced that it had entered into a definite purchase agreement with “certain non-US persons” to acquire ‘Bitcoin mining machines’ in exchange for nearly 11.9m newly issued 500.com Class A shares worth some US$14.4m.  

500.com expects the deal to be completed sometime in the current quarter, with another four weeks required to install all the acquired mining devices (which will have a total hash power capacity of 918.5 PH/s – 1 PH/s is one quadrillion hashes per second). The sweet Bitcoin mining revenue is expected to start flowing in the first half of 2021. 

Monday’s news follows an earlier private placement 500.com announced a few days before Christmas. That announcement detailed a share subscription deal with Hong Kong-based Good Luck Information Technology Co, which agreed to purchase nearly 86m new 500.com shares “to be settled in US dollars or in crypto-currencies, including Bitcoin.”