IHC founding members arrested. What’s next for the team?

Three founders of the Mongolian company IH Bit were arrested. IH Bit is the main sponsor of the esports organization IHC Esports, which owns the PUBG Mobile and CS:GO rosters.

Information published by the Mongolian newspaper The UB Post

According to the published information, last February 3, Ih Bit Global CEO Gantig Bayarmagnai, COO Munkhjin Otgonbaatar, and the organization’s president Erkhembayar Bayarsaikhan were arrested by the police.

The arrest comes from complaints from customers who bought the IHC cryptocurrency. But on the other hand, the information also highlights that these three important members of the organization are being accused of embezzlement and money laundering obtained by manipulating the market.

About IHC

In August 2021, IH Bit launched its cryptocurrency called Inflation Hedging Coin (IHC) on the market, from the sale of which it received about 30 billion Mongolian tugriks ($8,552,080.10). According to the Mongolian newspaper, these funds were embezzled by the company’s managers, which would be the reason for the arrest. Today, the price of IHC has fallen almost 97% from its initial price.

The esports club, IHC Esports, was founded in December 2021 when the organization signed the entire player base of ZEUS Esports. Its main sponsor was IH Bit.

Can this arrest affect the future of IHC Esports?

Interestingly, IHC Esports played an outstanding tournament at Counter-Strike: Global Offensive IEM Katowice 2023. This team was labeled the Cinderella of the tournament, as no one gave anything for them, not even that they could make it past the Play-In phase. However, they managed to send home two great Brazilian teams, such as paiN Gaming and FURIA Esports.

On the other hand, they continued their spectacular level in the group stage and were surprised by crushing Cloud9 2-0. But, then, they lost to Team Liquid and FaZe Clan to finish with a 9-12 record, but ahead of teams like MOUZ, NiP, BIG, and Cloud9.

Now, the organization’s future raises many questions about what might happen with this lineup that surprised everyone at IEM Katowice 2022. While everything is still “normal” with IHC, as on their Twitter account, they keep posting praises for their campaign held in Poland, the team’s future seems uncertain.

IHC’s growth in the last year

After several changes, in March 2022, IHC signed the Checkmate lineup, which was the best in Mongolia then. As a result, this team became a regular participant in top-level CS:GO tournaments. Recall that the team played the PGL Major Antwerp and the IEM Rio Major. In addition to the excellent performance just mentioned at IEM Katowice 2023.

On the other hand, the PUBG division of IHC Esports finished in fifth place in the PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2022. This was the organization’s second-best result in this Esports after they placed third in 2020 with the former ZEUS Esports lineup.

We’ll have to wait for the outcome of this story and see how this might affect esports clubs. While the CS:GO guys showed a lot of determination knowing this news already, the financial issue worries the most regarding this organization.

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