Kenilworth Exploration

Bitcoin Crowdinvesting meets real-world mining

Bitcoin-based investment platforms have had a long and colorful history in the past two years. The idea first started with the Global Bitcoin Stock Exchange, launched in April 2011. The exchange picked up quickly, with mining companies and the in-person Bitcoin exchange Ubitex as the first IPOs, but within months the exchange ran into its downfall: quality control. In December, the GLBSE-based Lambert Investment Funds, a fund which invested in other GLBSE assets, was forced to shut down because many of their investments turned out to be scams, and in August 2012 the GLBSE suffered a further blow as a $5 million Ponzi scheme suddenly disappeared, taking nearly half the GLBSE “economy” with it. Not long after, the GLBSE itself shut down for legal reasons. Since then, however, other platforms with much better quality control have taken the GLBSE’s place, and Bitcoin investments have seen a massive, but quiet, renaissance. The gambling site SatoshiDice and the Bitcoin mining company ASICMiner are listed on trading platforms MPEX and BitFunder with market capitalizations of $25 million and over $130 million, respectively, and BitFunder has over a dozen assets listed on the site, including such mundane businesses as the T-shirt vendor Bitcoin Pride.

Now, an Australian mining company is about to take the Bitcoin stock markets to the next level. At the beginning of June, Kenilworth Exploration, a mineral exploration company located in the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales, Australia, announced that it will be raising its first $925,000 round of funding using BitFunder. This sets a new first in the Bitcoin economy; although there have been many businesses in industries as diverse as Bitcoin exchange, Bitcoin mining, promotional clothing and gambling raising money from Bitcoin investors through such platforms, Kenilworth Exploration is the first business from outside the Bitcoin community to seek investment from Bitcoin users. More

Kenilworth Exploration