On October 29th, the two co-founders of Bitmain's "coercive drama" threw out the big melon of "the most expensive company in the blockchain".

All of a sudden, the two brothers who were still crying and supporting each other at the annual meeting last year changed their appearance overnight. Wu Jihan became "The Return of the King" and Zhan Ketuan became "The Demon King in Distress".

In the past, the two brothers turned against each other, and Wu Jihan, who took advantage of Ketuan Zhan's business trip to "seize power", was controversial, but it went smoothly. We can't help asking, who is supporting Wu Jihan, and why?

Unlike Jobs, Wu Jihan's road to the top is not "compliance"

This move is indeed a slant of the sword. In the eyes of many people, the process of Wu Jihan's "seizure of power" was neither compliant nor reasonable.

According to the prospectus disclosed by Bitmain in September last year, Ketuan Zhan holds 36% of the Group’s Class B shares (high voting shares), while Wu Jihan holds 20.25% of the Class B shares. Therefore, Ketuan Zhan holds 59.6% of the company's voting rights, which is an absolute advantage.

In addition, before the "coup", Ketuan Zhan was also the chairman of Cayman Company (the entity applying for listing in Hong Kong) and the executive director of Beijing Bitmain, while Wu Jihan was only a director of Cayman Company and a supervisor of Beijing Bitmain. In terms of voting rights and administrative power, it is very difficult for Wu Jihan to complete this kind of "usurpation".

Moreover, after "usurping the throne", Jihan Wu's totalitarian regulations prohibiting employees from contacting Ketuan Zhan and even implementing his orders are not like the result of democratic consultation.

What is unreasonable, just as an outsider Zhihu respondent said, Wu Jihan's approach is not necessarily good for the company.

"Contradictions between company founders are common. In case of serious irreconcilable conflicts, either one party will withdraw voluntarily and the other party will provide sufficient compensation, or the two will split and transform into two companies with little business relationship. But no matter what, the two parties will show the stability and unity of the company to the outside world for the sake of the company's reputation, and negotiate a solution. Wu's approach is too radical."

The respondent added: "It's like a wife taking advantage of her husband's business trip to sweep her husband out and change the locks, publicizing in her circle of friends that her husband has been unilaterally divorced, that she will be the head of the family in the future, and even threatening the children. Whoever talks to your father will be ashamed Don't even think about entering the house. And my husband hasn't said anything yet. At least in terms of bearing and caring about 'family', Zhan is better."

Is Ketuan Zhan the biggest worry for Bitmain?

Of course, as the soul figure who single-handedly made Bitmain bigger, Wu Jihan would not "don't care" about the life and death of the company. The reason why we have come to this point may be that as ViaBTC founder Yang Haipo said, Bitmain has reached the "most critical moment", and Wu Jihan can only seize power with an iron fist and "come back to save this company".

This sentence contains a lot of information. The internal and external troubles that Bitmain is currently facing seem to be more serious than we thought. According to Tencent News "Periscope", the biggest worry is Ketuan Zhan.

Now looking at the outside information, Ketuan Zhan has committed such "four deadly sins" since the bear market in 2018.

First, according to the evaluation of some employees, his personality is weird and crazy, he is addicted to alcohol, likes to practice Buddhism, believes in traditional Chinese medicine, and is obsessed with imitating Huawei and Ren Zhengfei. He has a tough personality, is not good at communication, and loves to swear. According to Coindesk, at Bitmain’s all-hands meeting on the afternoon of October 29, Wu Jihan also said that Ketuan Zhan was obsessed with power and vanity.

"Someone in the company said that I manage business and he (Ketuan Zhan) manages technology. I would like to ask, between Zhan and me, who really loves technology? Zhan doesn't love technology, he likes to satisfy his desire for power; he doesn't love technology, He loves vanity." Wu Jihan complained.

Second, poor management. Tencent News "Periscope" revealed that at the one-hour employee meeting held in Bitmain on the afternoon of the 29th, Jihan Wu enumerated the mismanagement of Ketuan Zhan, such as the "second organizational structure adjustment of the year" implemented internally by Ketuan Zhan in August this year. ", is the direct cause of this "coup".

This adjustment is advocated by Ketuan Zhan, and the company's strategic direction is also dominated by the artificial intelligence direction that Ketuan Zhan is responsible for. A number of employees told that Ketuan Zhan exchanged multiple departments. Many old employees and even business leaders were transferred to new departments and reported to junior superiors, which caused a large number of old employees to file for resignation.

Third, spend money on AI, but the results so far have been mediocre.

"Ketuan Zhan spent a lot of money trying to develop AI, and recruited a lot of 'middle-aged people' who were eliminated by Huawei. It was done very badly, and it has almost become a joke in our (AI) industry. Let alone Nvidia and Huawei, it is worse than the Cambrian. Three grades, and it also drags down the mining machine technology to be surpassed by competitors." A former employee of Bitmain who worked in the AI ​​​​department complained in Zhihu.

Fourth, major decision-making mistakes. At the all-hands meeting held by Bitmain yesterday afternoon, Jihan Wu pointed out that Ketuan Zhan’s decision to release chips in 2018 cost the company a lot of manpower and material resources, resulting in a direct loss of US$1.5 billion.

Based on the above, many employees have a lot of resentment of "suffering for a long time", and long for Wu Jihan's return.

Public opinion turns to Wu Jihan, management problems are still not small

Compared with Ketuan Zhan, current Bitmain employees and insiders have a more positive evaluation of Wu Jihan, who has "seized power".

"Wu Jihan has a good reputation in the company."

"Compared to Ketuan Zhan, Jihan Wu's handling is more popular, and customers are more recognized by external words."

"Wu is more like the spiritual leader of Bitmain, with good logic."

"Han is self-disciplined and a city mansion. He delivered a fatal blow. It was unexpected and reasonable."

These all appeared everywhere, from former employees and current employees' evaluations of Wu Jihan.

Externally, Wu Jihan is more popular than Ketuan Zhan, who is devoted to research and development, because of his translation of white papers and evangelism on Bitcoin. What's more, there are people in the BCH community who are cheering.

Weibit Yang Haipo and LeBit founder Jiang Zhuoer are all important mining pools of BCH.

After the news that Wu Jihan regained control of Bitmain, BCH also quickly rose by 7%.

A BCH group friend ran around calling out, "Big supporters of BCH are back, and those who know about the relationship have already bought in. Boss Wu has a great influence in the circle, and he goes to participate in activities."

In the eyes of many BCH supporters, Wu Jihan believes in the expansion route, and continues to contribute and preach for it, which is undoubtedly a "big leg" in the community.

Bitmain formed the "Copernicus" team in October 2017 to develop the new BCH client and the Layer 2 protocol. By the end of December 2018, before layoffs, the team had expanded from 6 to more than 30 people. It is difficult for a professional project development team to achieve. In addition, before Bitmain even issued meal cards in BCH, it can be said that it has personally expanded the application scenarios of BCH.

So, will it be a long-term good decision to hold BCH heavily at the company level? From the perspective of listing and the traditional capital market, will Bitmain, which is already affected by the price of BTC and other cryptocurrencies, invest too much human and financial resources in BCH, will it be accepted by the capital market? In fact, Wu Jihan has been keeping a low profile in the BCH community recently, and has put more thought into Matrixport and other directions.

No matter how many people in the BCH community support Wu Jihan, it is Bitmain’s shareholders who ultimately have the decision-making power. Whether Wu Jihan’s position is secure remains to be answered.

Many people attribute the split between Zhan and Wu to a dispute over routes—Wu Jihan hopes to develop new mining machines, restock BCH, and develop currency-based businesses. Ketuan Zhan hopes to develop in the field of AI. However, Bitmain and Wu Jihan responded repeatedly, "Jihan also supports AI."

However, due to limited funds, Bitmain cannot deploy too broadly after all. It is still necessary to choose a focus, whether to invest heavily in AI, or to lay out financial and public chain ecology other than mining, or to consolidate the main mining machine business. It is the answer sheet to be handed in in the future.

Although Wu Jihan has the evaluation of "being a good person and making great achievements in the circle", but in a close look, he wants to face the possible "counterattack" launched by Ketuan Zhan, reorganize the "military spirit", and manage the company that is already quite chaotic. , so that the listing process will not be affected by the "coup"; from a distance, Wu Jihan still needs to clarify the direction of the company's development.