The doyen of Indian cinema, Amitabh Bachchan, and his actor-son Abhishek appear to have scripted their own success story in their personal financial investments that none of the Bollywood guys would have ever imagined.
The crypto-currency mania that has gripped Wall Street and various financial markets throughout the globe has pushed the value of a stock investment from the Bachchan family from $250,000 to $17.5 million in 2 and a half year.
In May 2015, Amitabh Bachchan and his son Abhishek invested $250,000, within the private investment, in Meridian Tech.
Like most small tech businesses, few beyond the trade understood about Meridian. That completely transformed last week after Meridian’s major asset Ziddu-.com was acquired by the other Meenavalli-backed overseas firm LongFin Corp just two days following the latter’s listing on NASDAQ.
When Bachchans invested in Meridian (under RBI authorised liberalised remittance scheme or LRS), Ziddu was a cloud storage and e-distribution start-up.
Ziddu Coins Behind Frenzy
In December 2017, it’s called a Blockchain technology-enabled solutions provider that offers microfinance with cryptocurrencies across continents.
As a Result of Magical words like ‘blockchain’ and ‘crypto-currencies’, the LongFin stock climbed more than 1,000 percent between last Wednesday (13th December 2017) and Monday (18th December 2017).
Now with Bachchan’s holdings in the meridian, they gained 250,000 shares of LongFin after the asset buy. On Monday’s LongFin stock cost of $70 per share Bachchans’ holding in LongFin is valued at $17.5 million (which in the present exchange rate is roughly, Rs 114 crore).
As stated by the LongFin press launch, Ziddu does micro-lending against warehouse receipts. Following the stock, the frenzy is “Ziddu Warehouse Coin”, which the firm announcement states “is a wise contract that permits importers and exporters to utilize their Ziddu coins which are loosely pegged to Ethereum and Bitcoin Crypto.
LongFin asserts that importers and exporters convert Ziddu coins to Ethereum and Bitcoin Crypto-currencies and utilize the profits for their functioning capital requirements. The US-based LongFin Corp explained in the launch as an independent finance and technology firm that specializes in structured trade finance solutions and physical commodities finance solutions such as fund homes and trading systems such as North America, South America, and Africa regions.
Even if LongFin reaches its stated goals and develops, the hysteria across the newly recorded stock may perish when the Bitcoin bubble explodes. There’s absolutely no persuasive explanation for the current surge in prices of Bitcoin along with other crypto-currencies which originated following the monetary collapse in 2008 and amid rising distrust of fiat currencies that were being blindsided by central banks and authorities as they relentlessly made fresh money to keep afloat loss-ridden banks. But some feel that even if crypto-currencies drop their charisma, Blockchain the tech that’s delinked from any central authority and oversees the database which records Bitcoin trades may endure.
Source: http://www.unkrypted.com/bachchans-big-bet-on-ziddu/
Ricky Makan is a venture capitalist and Crypto Enthusiast best known for pioneering the market for Digital Marketing. He is a Co-founder of Unkrypted, a platform which provides the latest news and information that helps understand everything about the ever-evolving world of digital currencies. He is been fascinated by Blockchain technology since the first time he heard about it in 2013