Two years after selling his stake in a specialty mortgage firm he founded a decade ago, South Carolina businessman John Warren has announced the launch of a new incorporation in the Palmetto Upstate.
According to a release provided to this news outlet on Wednesday, Warren and a “team of seasoned South Carolina-based business leaders” are unveiling a new Bitcoin mining company called Gem Mining. The company is “mining Bitcoin using highly complex computers and software,” the release added.
Sources familiar with the announcement said the Greenville, S.C.-based company has a current valuation of more than $1.5 billion.
News of Warren’s announcement was first reported by Meg Kinnard of The Associated Press.
“Over the past ten months, my partners and I have built an institutional-grade Bitcoin mining company by purchasing the highest quality machines and partnering with industry-leading companies to host these machines,” Warren said in announcing his new venture. “We have laid a strong foundation and plan to be a significant player in this exciting and evolving space within cryptocurrency.”
Warren is the chief executive officer of the new company, which has reportedly raised more than $200 million in “institutional capital” and owns more than 32,000 mining machines.
“Gem Mining is an example of the power of entrepreneurship,” Warren explained. “We are proud to be building in Greenville, South Carolina one of the largest cryptocurrency mining companies, which is a substantial new development for our state.”
The founding of Gem Mining caps a busy year for Warren. During the 2020 election cycle, he launched a new political organization – South Carolina’s Conservative Future – which was active in numerous S.C State House races. Since then, Warren’s group has been focused on holding fiscally liberal Palmetto State politicians accountable for their actions.
“Career politicians love nothing more than hiding the truth about how they spend our money,” Warren wrote in an email to supporters earlier this year. “That is about to change.”
As regular readers of this news outlet are well aware, South Carolina’s “Republican-controlled” legislature has been ranked as the most liberal GOP legislature in America two years running. And its governor, Henry McMaster, is pure status quo when it comes to spending.
Warren nearly ousted McMaster in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary, but the fiscally liberal incumbent received a last-minute presidential endorsement in that race that helped carry him across the finish line.
This is a developing story … please check back for future updates.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: FITSNews)
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children. And yes, he has LOTS of hats (including that New York Knights’ lid from ‘The Natural’ pictured above).
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