Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)
Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)
At this moment in the Nasdaq studio, perhaps no one could have a more complicated mood than Zhang Nangeng. For an entrepreneur, an IPO is definitely a highlight moment in his career.
Behind the tide of applause, Zhang Nangeng waited for this moment for too long. In the past three years, Canaan Zhizhi’s IPO has suffered repeated failures, but he still persevered in submitting the prospectus, and finally realized his dream of listing on Nasdaq.
Under Zhang Nangeng's seemingly gentle and honest appearance, he actually has a restless heart. He wants to challenge the world and be a hero. Even if there is only a 5% chance, he has to give it a try.
Bitcoin activated his B-side life. Without Bitcoin, Pumpkin Zhang might be forever addicted to the endless cycle of using animation to pass the boring life; without Bitcoin, Zhang Nangeng would never appear in the Hurun Self-made Rich List as an entrepreneur with a net worth of 4 billion.
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Canaan goes ashore, and the currency circle is full of light
At 9:30 a.m. New York time, amidst the tide of cheers and applause, Zhang Nangeng, founder of Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer Canaan Zhizhi, tapped the NASDAQ market opening button with both hands and rang the bell. From this moment on, "Canaan", the first share of China's mining machinery, was officially listed and traded on Nasdaq.
At this time, Beijing has entered the night. But in the Bulgari Hotel in Beijing, a live broadcast of bell ringing is in full swing.
This is a bell ringing live connection organized by the Canaan Zhizhi team for the media. At the end of the countdown, the golden flowers on the scene in Beijing floated down, and everyone raised their mobile phones to record this historic scene. The staff members Emotions were high, shouting "yes we CAN" in the live group.
Of course, not just Canaan, but almost the entire currency circle is excited about it. As an upstream company of Bitcoin, the successful IPO of mining machine manufacturers is too special.
Industry insiders commented: "The outstanding contribution of Canaan's listing is the first time that the stock price and the currency price are directly linked."
However, very different from the usual style of "being a low-key person", Canaan Yunzhi spent a lot of money in the announcement of the listing.
In addition to holding a connection meeting at Bulgari, the top luxury hotel in Beijing, on the eve before the bell, Canaan Yunzhi also bought a large LED screen advertisement for the night view of Qianjiang New City in Hangzhou to make a splash. Light shows related to BTC, blockchain, and Canaan.
"It feels like a real estate company holding an annual meeting, which is luxurious and meaningless." Some people gave such an evaluation of the huge momentum of Canaan.
Canaan was successfully listed, and the currency circle followed suit. Not only did the aerial video of the BTC light show refresh the Moments, but the slogan "WE LOVE BTC" stood in the center of the Nasdaq LED screen on the day the bell was ringing.
Canaan used its listing to create a high-profile momentum for the industry, and its strength created a carnival feast for people in the currency circle.
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Otaku Zhang Nangeng starts his B-side life
Looking back from the perspective of God, Bitcoin has helped many people "change their lives", and Zhang Nangeng is one of them.
Zhang Nangeng was already 36 years old when he entered NASDAQ. The newborn calf who dropped out of school and started a business back then grew gray hair, but he also became a mining giant. In the past 8 years, the pattern of the mining world has undergone tremendous changes, but there are still legends circulating in the rivers and lakes that he conquered the country as "Pumpkin Zhang".
In 2011, Zhang Nangeng was still a "poor student" in Beihang University, relying on animation dramas on station B to pass his boring life. Watching 500 anime a year is no problem.
Before returning to school for further studies, Zhang Nangeng worked as a technician in Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation for three years, but this job was not what he wanted. In Zhang Nangeng's words, he needed to find something more challenging for himself, so he chose to return to school for further studies.
It was at this time that Zhang Nangeng got acquainted with Bitcoin. After spending the whole night studying Bitcoin literature, technology geek Zhang Nangeng was instantly ignited.
He saw the shining point of Bitcoin: Bitcoin has a 5% possibility of changing the world.
For ordinary people, "changing the world" is a very high school "ideal", but perhaps for Zhang Nangeng, who is passionate about animation and is in a period of confusion, changing the world is the real creed of life.
Even if Bitcoin is only a 5% possibility, it is worth trying.
On the other hand, from the disclosure of the white paper in 2008 to the disappearance of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2011, during the period, Bitcoin gradually changed from a geek toy to a member of the "currency" with financial attributes. Bitcoin ushered in a small bull market. At that time, the highest transaction price of a Bitcoin on Mt.Gox was around $30.
The mining industry is also evolving. In June of the same year, the world's first mining machine FPGA appeared. Graphics card-assembled CPU mining is difficult to compete with FPGA mining, and the computing power that FPGA mining can achieve reaches the GH/S level.
Therefore, Zhang Nangeng also began to develop FPGA mining machines. At first, he just wanted to subsidize living expenses and provide machines for overseas users. Therefore, Zhang Nangeng released his first product FPGA mining machine - Lcarus and Lancelot - in the Bitcoin forum under the ID name "ngzhang".
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Dropped out of school to start a business, "Pumpkin Zhang" became famous
However, the FPGA mining machine did not become the end of the mining machine circle, and soon, the discussion about the ASIC mining machine was put on the agenda.
At that time, the American "Butterfly Lab" was developing ASIC mining machines and planned not to sell them to the public. In other words, once the ASIC mining machine is developed by "Butterfly Lab", most of the computing power of the Bitcoin network will be in their hands, and they can easily monopolize the entire Bitcoin network through the 51% attack mode.
In order to defend the peace of the Bitcoin world, "Pumpkin Zhang" faced it head-on. He decided to fight the monopoly situation that may be brought by Butterfly Labs by developing and selling ASICs himself.
Soon, new problems followed.
The heavy academic tasks prevent him from focusing on the development of ASIC mining machines, but this is a life-and-death competition that waits for no one.
Zhang Nangeng, 29, realizes he may not be able to have both.
But Zhang Nangeng has never been an indecisive person, just as he was decisive when he gave up his stable business unit and returned to campus for further studies. He immediately decided to apply for a suspension from his professor and give priority to overcoming the difficulties in ASIC development. After the proposal to suspend school failed, Zhang Nangeng resolutely decided to drop out of school and start a business the next day.
In those few days, Zhang Nangeng, who almost never updated his social news, posted three Renren news in a row to explain his movements.
November 25: "Preparing to leave school to start a business..."
November 27: "Negotiating with the tutor failed to suspend school, and continue in two days"
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(These three posts can still be seen on Zhang Nangeng’s Renren homepage)
Unexpectedly, this "defense match" that was about the life and death of the Bitcoin network made "Pumpkin Zhang" really a "hero" and became famous.
Soon after, "Pumpkin Zhang" made the world's first ASIC bitcoin mining machine before Butterfly Lab, and named it "Avalon". . In addition, there is another deep meaning-the strongest defensive weapon in the anime "Fate".
On January 31, 2013, Zhang Nangeng sent the successfully developed mining machine to Jeff Gazik, the core developer of Bitcoin in the United States, and received a live broadcast of Jeff Gazik's unpacking.
In March 2013, a gathering of Bitcoin enthusiasts was held at the popular entrepreneurial treasure "Garage Coffee", and Avalon became the protagonist of the gathering.
More than 30 bitcoin enthusiasts were present, including Shenyu, Zhao Dong, Li Xiaolai and other well-known industry leaders. Avalon mining machine also appeared in this party and demonstrated its mining on the spot In terms of computing power, everyone was shocked when the computing power of the Avalon mining machine reached 70GHash/s.
You know, according to such computing power, the mining machine designed by Pumpkin Zhang at that time could produce 357 bitcoins per day, converted into legal currency, and the mining machine developed by Pumpkin Zhang could produce BTC worth 200,000 yuan a day.
As a result, everyone rushed to buy Avalon ASIC mining machines. According to data, a mining machine was fired to 300,000 at that time.
"Pumpkin Zhang not only did not secretly use Avalon mining to make a fortune, but kept his promise and sold all the first batch of Avalon mining machines produced to users, contributing to the decentralization of Bitcoin computing power. .”
At this time, some people in the industry gave Zhang Nangeng a high evaluation, calling Pumpkin Zhang a "Confucian businessman".
After the successful development of Avalon, in April of the same year, Zhang Nangeng and his partner Li Jiaxuan registered and established Beijing Jianan Jiesi Technology Co., Ltd. in Beijing.
After the first batch of machines sold out, the pre-sales of the second and third batches of mining machines were sold out in an instant. But in the process of pre-selling products, Zhang Nangeng encountered doubts.
According to Zhang Nangeng in the dialogue on Caiyun.com, in 2013, the first generation of Avalon chips that were expected to be shipped within 10 weeks could not be shipped due to packaging problems, and orders for different periods were delayed by 6 to 10 weeks.
At that time, the information of the team members was exposed by human flesh, and someone came to harass and threaten them based on their address. Afterwards, Pumpkin Zhang said that he would no longer pre-sell products.
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Difficult winter, financing continued life
Therefore, Zhang Nangeng began to want to take a simpler path - to be a chip company, handing over profits and risks to downstream mining machine manufacturers, and Avalon only earns design fees.
Subsequently, Zhang Nangeng decided to abandon the sale of the overall mining machine, and chose to open source all low-profit hardware solutions, and the team focused on the chip business.
Unexpectedly, in 2013, the policy dealt a fatal blow to Bitcoin, and the price of BTC plunged. For a long time, Zhang Nangeng’s mining machine chip business was not good, and he had no funds for tape-out.
Competing products did not stop chasing. During this period, Bitmain officially focused on technology research and development. It won a round of financing during the bear market in 2014 and grew stronger after the bear market. However, Canaan’s research and development speed did not seem to keep up. On the contrary, Bitmain has seized the market share.
It was not until October 2015 that Canaan continued to sell complete mining machines and launched the Avalon A6 mining machine under the “forced” attitude of Bitmain.
According to Zeroone Finance, in August 2015, Bitmain began to pre-sell the Antminer S7 mining machine with a power consumption of 257.3 (W/Ths). Two months later, Canaan began to sell the Avalon A6 mining machine with a power consumption of 300 (W/Ths).
The advantages of Bitmain are obvious. According to reports, Bitmain’s market share reached 80% at that time. Immediately afterwards, Bitmain launched the Antminer S9 mining machine, which once again left Canaan behind.
In the cold winter, Avalon, the pioneer of ASIC mining machines, has been dormant for too long.
In July 2014, Zhang Nangeng registered his Weibo account and wrote a sentence: "Finally, Avalon decided not to be silent anymore." At this time, no one knew what Pumpkin Zhang's real name was, only his nickname "Pumpkin Zhang".
Afterwards, Zhang Nangeng began to be active in the circle under his real name, constantly attending various events and telling the story and vision of Canaan Yunzhi.
Since 2015, Jianan Zhizhi, which had insufficient financing in the early stage, has embarked on the road of financing and raising dreams. Even though many of Canaan’s businesses did not make money at the time, investors such as Kong Jianping were still optimistic about Zhang Nangeng, who developed the Avalon mining machine.
According to Beep News, when Canaan Zhizhi entered the trough period, Kong Jianping and Sun Qifeng (Forest Man), the head of Yibit, invested 7.6 million and 1.4 million respectively in Canaan Zhizhi. Not only that, the two also ran around for Canaan Zhizhi's financing. The two brought in the Shuimu Zehua Fund under the Hangzhou Branch of Zhejiang Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute, and won another 2.5 million funds for Canaan Zhizhi.
With financing, Canaan Yunzhi came to life a little bit.
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Picture: Jianan Zhizhi’s 2015-2019 financing situation, please refer to the previous article "Canaan's past"
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Rapid expansion, "Pumpkin Zhang" takes off the mask and finds another way
With Grain and Grass, Jianan Zhizhi’s products are also constantly updated: 28nm ASIC mass production in 2015; first-generation 16nm ASIC mass-production in 2016; second-generation 16nm ASIC mass-production in 2017; third-generation 16nm ASIC in 2018 Mass production of ASICs; mass production of fourth-generation 16nm ASICs in 2019…
After several years of development, Canaan chose the road of IPO. After trying to backdoor the A-shares on the curve in 2016 and failed, Canaan also moved to the New Third Board and Hong Kong stocks, but all ended in failure. The trip to Nasdaq finally came true.
Canaan Yunzhi experienced too much before realizing his dream.
Selling mining machines alone is too risky. In the past 8 years, the mining industry has ushered in several reshuffles due to the ups and downs of Bitcoin prices, which also affects the development of mining machine manufacturers.
During this period, almost most mining machine manufacturers are expanding their business lines, vertically opening up upstream and downstream mines and mining pools; horizontally expanding new product lines, such as AI chips.
In order to go public better, Jianan Zhizhi gave up the former and chose the latter.
According to the media TMT Observation report, starting from 2018, Zhang Nangeng put more energy on the "second venture" to make AI chips. It was also this year that Canaan released and mass-produced the first generation of ASICs for artificial intelligence applications.
In the report, Zhang Nangeng believes that the production capacity of mining machines is not enough, and the attention of the mining machine market is weakening. Therefore, he paid attention to AI. In his opinion, the door of the AI chip industry has just opened to Canaan Yunzhi.
Zhang Nangeng wants to give up the aura of "Pumpkin Zhang" and fight AI chips again. Inside and outside the words, Zhang Nangeng is seeking a new growth point for Canaan Yunzhi. Wannian's second child wants to take the top spot. Apart from trying to catch up with the first place, it is not a bad idea to break the situation with a brand new business.
Whether he gave up his stable job as a civil servant, or just retreated from the peak of the mining machine business, or is now focusing on AI chip development, how much time does Zhang Nangeng leave for Zhang Nangeng, an entrepreneur born in the 1980s?
After the hustle and bustle, Times Square in New York was as busy as usual. After the market opened, Canaan’s stock price rose by 40%, but it fell below the issue price in less than half an hour, and the market performance was not satisfactory.
But for the currency circle, Canaan has made a good start, bringing a little ripple to the current flat market, and laying a shot in the arm for the shaken stock currency people.
In the future, more and more blockchain companies will fly to New York, 10,000 kilometers away, and after enjoying the splendor of golden flowers, they will open a bottle of champagne to celebrate their successful landing.
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references:
references:
Pumpkin Zhang and his Canaan Zhizhi: Three Choices Missed an Era——A Brief History of Canaan Zhizhi
Canaan Unofficial History
Caiyun’s exclusive interview with ngzhang: 28nm chip 0.5w/G will be taped out within 10 days
The Controversy of the Godfathers of Mining: Evangelists, Dictators and Prophets
Once mining 357 bitcoins a day, where is the mining king "Pumpkin Zhang" now?
The mysterious disappearance of the "ancestor" of the mining machine
Zhang Nangeng from Canaan Technology: Be an explorer in the digital world and use AI to improve human life
Canaan CEO Zhang Nangeng: Do not be a substitute, only a pioneer
Otaku Zhang Nangeng's counterattack and the crisis of prosperity |
Canaan listed Zhang Nangeng "surrendered"
Self-report of a senior mining machine manufacturer: Why did I cross the border to make AI chips
Zhang Nangeng: From Mining Machines to Chips
