Bitmain has released its cryptocurrency holdings, showing a significant portion in Dash, nearly as much as in Bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency mining equipment manufacturing giant, leading up to filing for its initial public offering (IPO), disclosed its cryptocurrency holdings, both in units and priced in USD, as of March of 2018. The results show an overwhelming portion of funds held in Bitcoin Cash, with Bitcoin and Dash not far from each other in second and third place, and Litecoin and Ethereum trailing behind.

Bitmain’s IPO could potentially reach as high as $18 billion, a valuation equal to the market capitalization of Bitcoin Cash and Ripple combined.

Bitmain’s holdings show confidence in real-world use currencies such as Dash

The distribution of Bitmain’s cryptocurrency holdings show a strong preference for coins posed to obtain real-world use. With the majority of mining investment and focus on Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash’s high ranking makes sense since it shares the same mining algorithm, and therefore equipment is compatible to effectively mine on both chains. Bitcoin Cash is far more useful in commerce than Bitcoin at the moment, which explains its high holding percentage. Dash, however, ranks a close third behind Bitcoin, with 70% of its total investment value as of March. Considering the market cap difference, and that Bitcoin has held the top stop by a wide margin for nearly a decade, this percentage is significant.

Additionally, Bitmain’s Dash holdings ranked double the value of their Litecoin, despite a meaningful market cap difference between the two, and despite the latter’s common perception as the payments-focused version of Bitcoin. Ethereum, despite maintaining its second-place spot in the cryptocurrency rankings, was not owned in any meaningful amount by Bitmain, though this may be due to the currency’s upcoming move away from proof-of-work mining to a purely proof-of-stake model.

Bitmain has shown favor to Dash in the past

The significant amount of Dash held by Bitmain is not inconsistent with remarks made in the past. During a scaling conference last summer, Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu specifically mentioned Dash and its plan to scale massively on-chain. Dash has remained committed to scaling on-chain long-term, and a recent stress test of the network processed over double Bitcoin’s transactions without issue, with a much larger test planned for later this year.