Recently, the mining circle has been very lively. Canaan Zhizhi is preparing to go public, and Ebang International has won huge orders. Competitors are constantly benefiting. However, Bitmain, which once stood in the spotlight and "has the most drama", has been silent for a long time.
Until today, a "coup return" drama brought Bitmain back to the center of public opinion again. Because, that man is back.
Today, Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes, and its legal representative was changed from Ketuan Zhan to Jihan Wu.
Soon, Wu Jihan issued an internal email announcing that Ketuan Zhan was relieved of all positions in Bitmain, effective immediately.
The email also stated that any employee of Bitmain shall no longer carry out the instructions of Zhan Ketuan and shall not participate in the meetings convened by Zhan Ketuan. If there is any violation, the company will consider terminating the labor contract according to the severity of the circumstances. criminal responsibility.
In addition, Odaily exclusively learned that the current head of HR has also been dismissed, the original head of HR was reappointed, and a staff meeting was held. The dismissed HR head was appointed by Zhan Ketuan at the end of 2018. The person in charge of HR this time is a veteran employee who followed Wu Jihan to start a business.
In the afternoon, Bitmain’s official reply: “Jihan Wu, the founder of Bitmain, chairman of the board of directors of Bitmain Group, legal representative and executive director of Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd., decided to dismiss Ketuan Zhan from all positions in Bitmain, effective immediately. We believe that under the leadership of Mr. Wu Jihan, Bitmain will return to its original aspirations, focus on its main business, develop orderly and horizontally, and become a world-leading technology company.”
Founded in 2013, Bitmain was funded by Jihan Wu and invested in Ketuan Zhan to develop mining chips. At its peak, it achieved annual revenue of US$2.5 billion in 2017, almost comparable to semiconductor giant Nvidia. At present, Bitmain is already the largest mining machine manufacturer in the world.
Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan are both co-founders of Bitmain. According to the prospectus released by Bitmain in September last year, Ketuan Zhan is the largest shareholder of Bitmain, accounting for 36% of the shares; Wu Jihan's fund holds 20.25% of the shares, making it the second largest shareholder.
However, since April last year, there have been rumors within Bitmain that "Mike Tuan Zhan and Jihan Wu are separating." At the end of last year, Odaily learned that Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu will both step down as CEOs of Bitmain. This matter was due to the differences between the two people on the company's development, which caused the company's management to lose focus for a while. Bitmain was also frustrated in the bear market due to the failure of R&D, and experienced twists and turns such as cleaning up mining machine inventory, laying off hundreds of people, and high-level changes.
On March 26, the day when Bitmain’s Hong Kong IPO expired, the company issued an internal letter announcing the structural adjustment, with Wang Haichao serving as the company’s CEO, Zhan Ketuan continuing to serve as the company’s chairman, and Wu Jihan continuing to serve as the company’s director. The letter disclosed that the newly promoted CEO Wang Haichao had served as the head of several departments of Bitmain, and made a significant contribution to the company's supply chain capacity expansion in 2017.
At the same time, Wu Jihan founded a new project, Matrixport, and Ge Yuesheng served as CEO.
Today, successive personnel changes show that Wu Jihan is returning to Bitmain to "take power" forcefully.
This time Wu Jihan returned to Bitmain, some people in the industry believe that it is because Bitmain is in the most critical moment. As mentioned earlier, Bitmain is in jeopardy internally due to R&D and management issues; externally, it is also facing pressure from competitors such as Innosilicon and Whatsmart to catch up.
Wu Jihan's return this time has been hailed by many people as the Steve Jobs who regained control of Apple in 1996.
Yang Haipo, the founder of the mining pool operator ViaBTC and the exchange CoinEx, commented on Weibo that at the most critical moment, he (Wu Jihan) used an iron fist to regain control of Bitmain, hoping that he would be like Jobs, Lead the company to glory again. Bitmain is currently the second largest shareholder of ViaBTC and CoinEx.
Yang Haipo also said: "Wu Jihan is the earliest evangelist of China's blockchain, the translator of the Chinese version of the Bitcoin white paper, and the founder of the world's largest blockchain company, Bitmain. It is under his leadership that Bitmain goes to Brilliant, but due to some historical reasons, as happened many times in history, he was almost driven out of the company he founded, and Bitmain also fell from the altar."
After the news that Wu Jihan became a legal person of Bitmain was released, BCH rose by 6% in more than 2 hours, and now a small part of the correction has been made. Wu Jihan was once a staunch supporter of BCH.
