The hype around the once-imminent Bitmain IPO has died down to a wash of awkward whispers as Hong Kong financial regulators have proven reluctant to move forward. The world’s biggest supplier of mining hardware is now contemplating its next steps. But what about the world’s largest blockchain payment provider? BitPay hasn’t publicly discussed any kind of IPO but according to documents exclusively obtained by CoinGeek, it is suffering from some of the same problems as Bitmain.

One problem is determining valuation. Due to the structure of BitPay’s balance sheet and other problems inherent in the volatility of BTC and BCHABC, the two coins the processor works with exclusively, assigning a value to BitPay is next to impossible. Don’t take our word for it though. This assessment comes from a document dated April 2018 recently leaked to CoinGeek in the form of a fair market value assessment for BitPay compiled by Adams Capital Valuation Services.

Adams Capital does succeed in pinning a value for BitPay, but doesn’t seem too sure about it. Before we get to the number though, it seems that the main reason Bitmain wanted to do an IPO was that it needed capital to expand, but its balance sheet was clogged with BTC and not enough fiat currency. If it had wanted to raise capital, it would have to sell BTC in large amounts and that would work against its own balance sheet by pushing the price down. So it needed to raise money another way. An IPO would be a good way of accomplishing that.

Now, it appears BitPay is suffering from a similar problem, though not as acute. On BitPay’s balance sheet, we know the following. The original BTC spike to $1,150 at the end of 2013 was followed by a fall to around $300 by the end of 2014, a collapse of about 75%. That initial collapse brought down BitPay’s annual revenue from $6.23M in 2013 to a revenue loss of $35,000 in 2014. Bet you didn’t think a company could actually make negative revenues, but if you’ve got accounting issues it’s possible. Again in the words of Adams Capital, “BitPay’s revenue dropped from $6,229,163 to $-35,677 between 2013 and 2014. However, the majority of the revenue in 2013 was related to a realized gain on bitcoin market value.”