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It takes about 2-3 months for a ship carrying letters from Beijing to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. If you send an ordinary letter instead of a registered letter, you only need to put a 4-yuan stamp on it and put it in a mailbox on the side of the road. Logistics cannot be tracked, lost mail cannot be replaced, and no signature is required. On November 13, 2019, Bitmain founder Jihan Wu held a "special shareholders' meeting" at the Beijing headquarters. According to the company's articles of association, he notified shareholders 8 days in advance.
He has many ways to choose, such as by phone, email or air express. But what Wu Jihan did was to send the letter to the shareholder agency established in the Cayman Islands by the slowest sea transportation. At the shareholders' meeting where many shareholders were absent, Wu Jihan abolished the 10 times voting rights corresponding to Bitmain's Class B shares. This also led to the loss of absolute control of the company by Zhan Ketuan, another founder and chairman of Bitmain. According to the prospectus, Zhan Ketuan is the largest shareholder of Bitmain, holding 36%. Wu Jihan is the second largest shareholder, holding 20.25%. Since Bitmain implements AB shares, the Class B shares held by Zhan and Wu correspond to 10 times the voting rights, so Zhan Ketuan has a total of 59.6% of the voting rights. In theory, even if all other shareholders join hands, there is no chance to sweep him out. But that's what happened.
Zhan Ketuan was absent from the shareholders' meeting because he did not receive the notice. Not only him, Zhan Ketuan's overseas lawyers later verified with all external shareholders, and 5 of them said they had never received the notice, and one said that his Hong Kong office received "Bitmain-related letters forwarded from the Cayman Islands agency", but that was several months after the shareholders' meeting. According to Cayman law and Bitmain's articles of association, changes to shareholder resolutions must be voted on by shareholders attending the meeting, and more than 75% of them are in favor. Shareholder resolutions are only registered and not verified. "At the United Nations General Assembly, Ukraine proposed to abolish Russia's veto power, but it was vetoed by Russia on the spot." Half a year later, Zhan Ketuan's lawyer Wang Xi (pseudonym) told "LatePost" this joke that was once widely circulated on the Internet.
He thinks this is very similar to the fight between Zhan and Wu, except that the protagonist of the story rewrote the rules: in order to prevent being vetoed by Zhan Ketuan, Wu Jihan did not give him a chance to appear. For 9 months, the battle for control between the two founders has become a haze hanging over the "mining tyrant" Bitmain. Bitmain was once one of the most influential companies in the field of digital currency in the world, with a layout in the entire industrial chain of chips, mining machines, mining farms, and mining pools. Wu Jihan, born in 1986, has a double degree in economics and psychology from Peking University. He was regarded as a "Bitcoin evangelist" because of his early translation of Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin white paper. Zhan Ketuan is seven years older than Wu Jihan and graduated from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2013, he started a business with Wu Jihan and was responsible for research and development. The complementary abilities of the founders were once Bitmain's biggest advantage. But now, they have changed the legal person, snatched the business license, deceived shareholders and employees, and transferred company assets... All this has not ended until today. The spiritual leader of the cryptocurrency world who believes in Hayek's idealism and Satoshi Nakamoto's decentralized values is performing the most primitive and barbaric stories in the utopia he has created. 1. Seize power
In early November 2019, Wang Xi met Zhan Ketuan for the first time at the law firm. He sat in the corner of the conference room, looking very depressed. He didn't say much and asked his assistant to explain the cause and effect. Wang Xi felt that Zhan Ketuan was still trapped in the pain of being kicked out of the company. A few days ago, Zhan Ketuan attended the Security Expo in Shenzhen, where Bitmain released an intelligent server. The next day, his co-founder Wu Jihan took the official seal and changed the company's legal person from Zhan Ketuan to himself.
Wu Jihan first sent an email to all employees, "removing" Zhan Ketuan from all his positions in the company. That afternoon, he organized another general meeting, with more than 1,300 employees gathered on various floors for video access. According to the employees present, Wu Jihan was passionate and detailed Zhan Ketuan's failures in management, saying that Bitmain had serious problems. "I must come back to save this company." Wu Jihan said. Zhan Ketuan immediately rushed back to Beijing from Shenzhen after receiving the news. When he arrived at the company, he found that the security guard had been replaced and his fingerprint could not be used to open the door. It is understood that Wu Jihan was able to change the legal person because he used his identity as the executive director of the Hong Kong company. In 2016, Bitmain built an overseas structure for listing and set up a parent company in the Cayman Islands. Cayman held shares in Hong Kong, Hong Kong held shares in Beijing, and the Beijing company was the operating entity. Zhan Ketuan, as the largest shareholder, is not only the chairman of the Cayman company, but also the executive director, legal person, and general manager of the Beijing company. However, the executive director of the Hong Kong company is registered as Wu Jihan, and Wu Jihan changed the legal person of the Beijing company in the name of the Hong Kong parent company.
After Wu Jihan "seized power", he replaced the heads of key positions including HR. Two months later, Bitmain laid off 35% of its employees overall. The R&D department in charge of Zhan Ketuan was the hardest hit, and the AI team he built by himself was almost cut by two-thirds.
The R&D unit where Liu Guang, an employee of Bitmain, works used to have 20 to 30 people, but only 3 or 4 people are left after this round of adjustments. Some of his colleagues were transferred to Bitmain's cloud computing platform "BitDeer". When Zhan Ketuan was still there, he planned to integrate the three mining farms under Bitmain into "BitDeer", which was opposed by Wu Jihan's old subordinates. After Wu Jihan came back, "BitDeer was dismembered." Liu Guang said. The original team was disbanded, the person in charge was replaced, and R&D was divided into two other mining pools of Bitmain. But the project was still retained, and employees were transferred from other departments to continue working on it.
LatePost confirmed with Wu Jihan and received the following response: Wu Jihan returned to reverse Bitmain's cash flow crisis and rectify the company's culture.
"Since 2016, arrogance and a morbid desire for arbitrary power have begun to corrode the company from top to bottom, and the company's culture has gradually fallen into darkness... The company's business decisions have made fatal mistakes in succession, and it has twice hovered on the brink of life and death," Wu Jihan said.
2. Zhan Ketuan's lawsuit
There is a technology park to the north of the Olympic Forest Park outside the North Fifth Ring Road, where Bitmain's Beijing headquarters is located. After Wu Jihan "seized power", for a long time, a tourist bus and a van were parked in the park, "with a car full of security guards." Liu Guang guessed that these security guards might be prepared for Zhan Ketuan. Wu Jihan once issued a statement saying that Zhan Ketuan might "take the opportunity to act recklessly" and "attack the Beijing Bitmain office."
But in the following months, Zhan Ketuan seemed to have disappeared out of thin air. He only wrote an open letter in early November, saying that he was "stabbed in the back by his most trusted partner and brother who had worked together." Zhan Ketuan's lawyer Wang Xi described that Zhan Ketuan, who could not enter the company, went home and "was in a daze for a few days" and then began to look for a lawyer to defend his rights. Before him, Zhan Ketuan had visited several law firms, but was not satisfied with any of them. Wang Xi's legal advice to Zhan Ketuan was: Don't file a civil lawsuit, file an administrative review. The former is to sue Wu Jihan, with a greater chance of winning, but it will take a long time. The first instance will take at least 1 year, and the second instance will take half a year. After a year and a half, the company has changed beyond recognition. The latter is to sue the Municipal Supervision Bureau and find fault with the law enforcers. There is more resistance when a citizen sues an official, but the result can be obtained in 60 days. Wang Xi believes that this is the reason why Zhan Ketuan finally chose him.
"What I'm thinking about is the life and death of the company," Wang Xi said. "The company can't stand the turmoil. In the end, everyone will perish together."
In November 2019, Wang Xi, on behalf of Zhan Ketuan, filed an administrative reconsideration against the Haidian District Market Supervision Administration. His reason for the reconsideration was that there was a modification in the "Shareholder Decision" submitted by Wu Jihan to the Market Supervision Administration. The original text was crossed out and stamped with an official seal, which destroyed the authenticity, and the registration authority did not conduct an effective verification. "The success rate of administrative reconsideration is very low, and we must find out where the problem is. Fortunately, we found it the first time." Wang Xi said.
In January 2020, the Haidian District People's Government supported Zhan Ketuan and asked the Municipal Supervision Bureau to change the legal representative of Bitmain back. However, while waiting for the judicial result, the legal representative of Bitmain was changed from Wu Jihan to Liu Luyao, the CFO of Bitmain and Wu Jihan's high school and college classmate.
Wang Xi believed that the other party changed the legal person at this time in order to delay time and make the judgment of the Judicial Bureau impossible to execute. He took Zhan Ketuan to the Municipal Supervision Bureau for several negotiations but to no avail, so he could only file a second administrative review.
This time, he found a new loophole: Bitmain's articles of association stipulate that the amendment of the original articles of association requires the signatures of shareholders and legal persons at the same time, but the materials submitted by Wu Jihan's side had the signature of Wu Jihan, the shareholder, and the signature of Liu Luyao, the legal person. At that time, the legal person of Bitmain was Wu Jihan, not Liu Luyao.
At the end of April this year, the Haidian District People's Government once again supported Zhan Ketuan and asked the Municipal Supervision Bureau to restore the legal representative of Bitmain to Zhan Ketuan. After winning the second administrative review, Zhan Ketuan thought that this nightmare was finally over. In the six months since he left, Wu Jihan has laid off nearly 500 people.
Zhan Ketuan sent an open letter at the beginning of the year, saying that this was a "near-suicidal wrong decision", and then set up a resignation group, named "The First Snow of 2020", and brought in the laid-off employees one by one, hoping that they would not be separated.
In addition to layoffs, Wu Jihan actually cleared a batch of mining machine inventory at a low price in the past six months and signed new sales agreements with some dealers. He also registered a subsidiary "Chongqing Silicon Mainland" under Bitmain's Singapore company, and organized employees of Beijing Bitmain to sign labor contracts with "Silicon Mainland", promising that their options and length of service would remain unchanged. After Zhan Ketuan won the second administrative reconsideration, the leader of Liu Guang's department held a group meeting and informed everyone that "Mr. Zhan might come back" and asked them to decide on the spot whether to change their contracts. The leaders mobilized, the employees expressed their determination, and under pressure, all employees in the department said they would change. Loyalty seemed powerless at this time. 3. “Just do it, don’t be afraid”
In early May this year, Zhan Ketuan sent a message in the "First Snow" resignation group, saying that he would return to the company and would guarantee everyone's salary and options. "Bitmain is our home, we will not leave."
On May 8, Wu Jihan took a screenshot of this conversation and posted it to the Bitmain group, and responded, "In the past three years, everyone has witnessed that James is a respectable founder, but he destroyed the company's upward momentum and destroyed billions of dollars of the company's value. Don't believe his lies... Just do it, don't be scared."
At noon that day, Bitmain locked the door. The security guard stood outside the glass door and said that the access control was broken. But Liu Guang clearly saw that there was a U-shaped lock on the handle of the glass door. He thought Zhan Ketuan would break into the office, but the ban was lifted soon after and nothing happened.
At this moment, Zhan Ketuan is experiencing the most dramatic moment in his life.
That morning, the Haidian District Market Supervision Bureau notified him to go and get his business license. When Zhan Ketuan walked into the second-floor business hall of the Market Supervision Bureau, he saw dozens of people sitting in the waiting area in the middle of the hall. At that time, he hadn't noticed that these people were mostly men, many of them wearing black plain clothes, and some even wore purple masks.
Liu Luyao, CFO of Bitmain, who has already sided with Wu Jihan, Wang Wenguang, head of the mining center, and lawyers from Fangda Law Firm hired by Wu Jihan were also in the crowd. There is a row of open grid tables in the office lobby, where administrative staff sit inside and people who do business sit outside. When the administrative staff called Bitmain - according to several people at the scene who recalled to LatePost - many people who were originally sitting in the waiting area stood up "all of a sudden". Zhan Ketuan and lawyer Wang Xi squeezed to the counter, and Wang Wenguang and Wu Jihan's lawyer also came over, standing next to Zhan Ketuan with one person between them, and talking to the administrative staff. At this time, the staff of the Municipal Supervision Bureau announced that Zhan Ketuan would be restored as the legal person and executive director of Bitmain and issued a business license to him. Just as Zhan Ketuan signed the delivery receipt, Wang Xi heard someone shouting in the back: "I am the legal representative, and the business license is mine!"
The scene was in chaos. Suddenly, Wang Wenguang snatched the business license from the public official and turned away. (Wu Jihan denied this statement.) Zhan Ketuan wanted to chase him, but the people behind him surrounded them and blocked them tightly.
On that day, Zhan Ketuan's group consisted of seven people, including two assistant lawyers brought by Wang Xi, and Zhan Ketuan's assistant Wu Jing, who called two personal friends to act as "bodyguards." One of the friends even had some verbal friction and shoving with the people who were blocking the scene. Wu Jing was standing at the back at the time, and she saw several people escorting Wang Wenguang, who was trying to grab the license, down the elevator, and she hurriedly chased after them. When she reached the first floor, she found that there were still many people waiting for them. She followed the "license grabbing team" and went out of the gate, but they disappeared.
Wu Jing later recalled the incident, "My hands were cold." Wang Xi was also shocked and trembling, and he called the police immediately. Zhan Ketuan stood beside him, leaning against the railing, repeating over and over again: "How could this happen?"
What Wang Xi is most worried about is not that the business license will be taken away, but that the other party will immediately change the legal person back after obtaining the license. Zhan Ketuan has been away for more than half a year after two administrative reviews.
He couldn't wait and couldn't bear it any longer.
Over the past six months, Wu Jihan has seized power with an "iron fist", and all kinds of gossips have flooded the Internet. When the lawsuit encountered problems, Wang Xi had prepared three plans for Zhan Ketuan, one radical, one compromise, and one conservative. Zhan Ketuan chose the conservative and most compromised ones. For example, Wang Xi believed that posting the on-site recording of the license grabbing on the Internet would help supervise the relevant departments to enforce the law impartially, but Zhan Ketuan firmly disagreed with doing so. "He felt that doing this would not help and would not make his company better." Wang Xi said. Over the past six months, Zhan Ketuan has basically only done one thing, except for writing a few letters to employees, which is to file an administrative review. "But I didn't expect such a thing to happen - you go to the Municipal Supervision Bureau to get a business license, and the license is snatched in front of you - this is too subversive." Wang Xi said. In April 2020, Li Guoqing snatched dozens of official seals and financial seals from Dangdang, which were taken from Dangdang. But Wu Jihan's people actually snatched the business license from public officials in state agencies. On the same day, the Municipal Supervision Bureau also reported to the police as the victim.
The Haidian District Police Station and the Municipal Supervision Bureau are only 1 kilometer apart. When the police arrived, they took Zhan Ketuan, Wang Xi and the staff of the Municipal Supervision Bureau away. In the afternoon, the police also called Liu Luyao and asked him to bring his business license.
When Liu Luyao came, Zhan Ketuan and Wang Xi were standing in the yard of the police station waiting, and different functional departments took turns to question them. They saw Liu Luyao walk in from a distance, and neither of them spoke. Not long ago, Wang Xi called the Haidian District Public Security Bureau to follow up on the progress of the case and learned that the case had been transferred to the procuratorate. The police later detained some of the leaders, Liu Luyao was released after "cooperating with the investigation" for several days, and Wang Wenguang was detained for 37 days for "suspected of provoking trouble" and has now been released on bail. 4. Prequel
Zhan Ketuan couldn't figure out why things had turned out like this. Just two weeks before Wu Jihan seized power, he met Wu in Germany. They attended the Digital Mining Conference in Frankfurt together, and the two drank together after the meeting. In 2013, Zhan Ketuan was still running a company that made set-top boxes. Once, his company's sales were setting up a stall under the overpass, and Wu Jihan happened to pass by. He learned that the chip in the set-top box was developed by them. He was very interested, so he met Zhan Ketuan through sales. At that time, Bitcoin had become popular, but the computing power of the entire network was lacking. Wu Jihan saw the huge demand in the mining machine market and talked to Zhan Ketuan for two hours. The two hit it off and decided to set up a mining machine company.
Zhan Ketuan went to the Industrial and Commercial Bureau to complete the formalities and named his company Bitmain in a taxi. In October 2013, Bitcoin started its first bull market. Bitmain launched the Antminer S1 with a 55nm chip, which became a hit with its low power consumption.
Regarding the first mining machine, Zhanketuan and Wu Jihan also have a bet agreement. An insider told LatePost that if the two key technical indicators of the mining machine chip are achieved, Zhanketuan will get 60% of the company's shares.
Later, Zhan Ketuan won. Because of this, his shareholding ratio was higher than Wu Jihan. After that, Bitmain introduced external investment. After several rounds of dilution, Zhan Ketuan still held 36% of the shares before the IPO. Bitmain is engaged in mining and selling mining machines. The market demand rises and falls with the market of digital currency. When the market is good, the sales revenue of mining machines and the value of digital assets soar together. When the market is bad, Bitmain has also survived several crises.
At the end of 2013, the world's largest trading platform Mt.Gox was exposed for fraud, and Bitcoin fell back from its historical high of nearly $1,200. In 2014, the market continued to be sluggish, and mining machine manufacturers faced a reshuffle. At that time, Bitmain encountered a capital chain crisis. At the most difficult time, suppliers came to the chip factory in Shenzhen to block the door.
A person close to Bitmain revealed to LatePost that it was Zhan Ketuan who finally found a familiar investor to borrow 20 million yuan with unlimited guarantees to resolve the crisis. In the second half of 2015, Bitcoin rebounded, and Bitmain, which did not stop research and development during the cold winter, launched the fifth-generation mining machine Antminer S5, which became the most competitive blockbuster in the market. According to the prospectus, Bitmain not only came back to life that year, but also earned a net profit of 334 million yuan. In the next two years, Bitmain took advantage of the momentum and launched the Antminer S7 and S9 series, establishing its position as a "mining tyrant".
2017 was the peak period for Bitmain, but it was also a year full of crises. The discussion on Bitcoin expansion became increasingly intense. With the support of Jihan Wu, Bitmain invested in ViaBTC, which “forked” Bitcoin Cash (BCH) from Bitcoin (BTC). One year later, “Austin Powers” forked Wu Jihan’s BCH again.
The two fork crises have plunged Bitmain into a quagmire. Mining machine revenue has decreased, and digital assets are also facing a huge depreciation. The prospectus shows that as of 2018, Bitmain held nearly 900 million US dollars in digital currencies, most of which were BCH.
It was also at this time that the two began to split. Wu Jihan was optimistic about digital currency and blockchain, and invested heavily in BCH. Zhan Ketuan believed that AI was the future, and began to invest in the research and development of AI chips. Wu Jihan once said that he lost $800 million on his BCH investment. But he also pointed out that Zhan Ketuan bet on AI in 2017 and 2018, and the 16nm, 12nm and 10nm chips he developed failed to tape out four times, causing the company to lose $1.5 billion. A core employee of Bitmain's chip department believes that Wu Jihan's calculated losses are exaggerated several times. $1.5 billion is equivalent to the production capacity of a TSMC production line for half a year, not to mention that the failure of a one-time tape-out is not equivalent to a loss. The problems of Bitmain's co-CEOs are gradually exposed. Both CEOs are using what they think is right to consume Bitmain's cash flow. When the business declines and cash flow is tight, they begin to make trade-offs in resource investment.
In September 2018, Bitmain submitted its prospectus. Three months later, before the hearing, BCH encountered a second fork, and cash flow became even tighter. Wu Jihan proposed to lay off employees to reduce costs, but was opposed by Zhan Ketuan. Some employees of Bitmain believe that it was during this process that the relationship between the two parties gradually deteriorated.
5. Abdication
On December 16, 2018, when Wu Jihan was on a business trip to Hong Kong, Zhan Ketuan convened a management meeting. People close to Zhan Ketuan confirmed to LatePost that he summoned more than 30 core employees to the Fengdu Jiahe Hotel, two kilometers away from the company, and proposed that Bitmain should end the dual CEO situation in the future. After Wu Jihan learned the news, he immediately rushed back to Beijing and negotiated with Zhan Ketuan all night.
The final negotiation result surprised everyone: Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan resigned at the same time, and Wang Haichao, a middle-level manager in charge of Bitmain's mining machine business, became the new CEO. Zhan Ketuan remained the chairman, and Wu Jihan became a director. After Bitmain welcomed a new CEO, the long-delayed layoff plan was implemented. Teams in Beijing, Singapore, Taiwan, and Shanghai laid off more than 50%. The R&D center in Israel was closed, and the Shenzhen "New Species" technology company, which was acquired only ten months ago, was also disbanded. Wu Jihan spun off the payment, wallet, security and other teams within Bitmain, and founded the cryptocurrency trading platform "Matrixport" with Ge Yuesheng, the head of Bitmain's investment and financing department. Zhan Ketuan also spun off the AI terminal team for independent financing. The two founders parted ways .
That year, Bitmain held its annual meeting at the Kempinski Hotel on the Yanqi Lake in Beijing, with 70 tables. Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan gave each employee a red envelope of 800 yuan. Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan sat next to each other, both of them drank too much and cried bitterly. That night was probably the last tender moment between Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan. Half a year later, no one expected that Zhan Ketuan, who had left, would return to the company. A core employee of Bitmain’s R&D department believed that this was because there were some problems with the development progress of Bitmain’s mining machines.
In the six months that Wang Haichao was the CEO, Bitmain did not release a mining machine. Before that, Bitmain made a version of the chip every two or three months, and then launched a mining machine in the next month, and could make 4-6 mining machines a year. "Everyone is saying that Lao Zhan tore up the agreement with Xiaohan, but in fact, Lao Zhan can't be considered to have returned to the company. We were a little slow in hardware development, and he did participate in some technical discussions." The employee said.
In addition to R&D, Zhan Ketuan also began to make some adjustments to Bitmain in terms of organizational structure, which involved the interests of some "entrepreneurial veterans", including Zhan Ketuan's plan to replace CFO Liu Luyao, who had a close relationship with Wu Jihan. A core employee believes that this may be the fuse for Wu Jihan's return. Wang Xi has represented many cases of equity disputes, and each one is a Rashomon that cannot be explained. But he believes that the special thing about Bitmain is that the whole process of Wu Jihan's attempt to remove Zhan Ketuan is like a sneak attack. "It is normal for all shareholders to decide to change someone. But there must be problems with the sneak attack method." Wang Xi said. He believes that even if it succeeds, it will have a negative impact on the reputation of the founder. Bitmain introduced financial capital such as IDG, Sequoia, and Innovation Works in 2017 and 2018, but the equity ratio of these shareholders is not high. After the two founders tore apart, the investors collectively chose to remain silent.
6. Go Home
On June 1, the Haidian District Police Station returned the business license to the Municipal Supervision Bureau, and Zhan Ketuan went to collect it. With the lesson learned from the last time, he brought bodyguards this time, and Wang Xi also brought a few more lawyers to surround Zhan Ketuan tightly.
Zhan Ketuan received the license, hugged his backpack against his chest, went out and got into the car to carve a new official seal, not daring to stop for a moment. Wang Xi also asked him to put 10,000 yuan in cash in the backpack. "Robbing a business license may not be taken seriously, but robbing cash is another matter." After seven months, Zhan Ketuan couldn't wait to return to the company as soon as possible. Wang Xi originally wanted to plan how to dispose of assets and appease employees. He was worried that Zhan Ketuan would clash with the security personnel hired by Wu Jihan. Zhan Ketuan said that he would not bring anyone, and he turned to worry about his safety.
Halfway through writing the plan, Zhan Ketuan told him that he had already gone back and "arrived at the company gate." Wang Xi said, "We haven't made a plan yet, and he ran back first." Early in the morning of June 3, Zhan Ketuan contacted the lock-opening company registered with the police station and pried open the back door to enter the company.
He is finally back.
What awaited him was an empty office building. Wu Jihan had already asked employees to work from home and the security was withdrawn.
Zhan Ketuan told employees in the "First Snow" resignation group that he had returned to the company. He called them back and said that he would give red envelopes to employees who returned to work first, 10,000 on the first day and 5,000 on the second day. Liu Guang received a big red envelope from Zhan Ketuan. He lived near the company and rushed over after hearing the news. Zhan Ketuan was standing in the office area chatting with several employees, "refreshed." He went over and greeted Zhan Ketuan: "Mr. Zhan, I'm here to work." Zhan Ketuan smiled and said, "Okay, go to work with peace of mind." When handing out the red envelope, Liu Guang noticed that Zhan Ketuan presented it with both hands, "very sincere." According to a Bitmain insider, someone from Wu Jihan's side also went to receive Zhan Ketuan's big red envelope that day. The employee took the money and never showed up at the company again.
Wang Xi went to see Zhan Ketuan the day after he returned. Zhan Ketuan took him around and took him to his office for tea and chat. He had never seen Zhan Ketuan so relaxed in the past few months.
Zhan Ketuan is from Fujian and likes to drink tea. There is a tea table in his office. He also likes to eat peanuts. While making tea for Wang Xi, he took out several large bags of "peanuts that have been stored for who knows how many months, and the skins are all gone." That day, more than a dozen employees of Bitmain returned to work. Zhan Ketuan ordered dishes and red wine in the evening and had a "reunion dinner" with them in the conference room.
The AI and chip teams have resumed work one after another, but sales, IT, finance, mining machine development, etc. are still on Wu Jihan's side. Bitmain's internal system, OA system, email, official website, access control and even wifi cannot be logged in normally. The financial accounts have also been moved away. The terminal for access control fingerprint entry is still there, but the technicians on Wu Jihan's side can see the records on the backend server. Liu Guang entered it three times, and the technicians on the side deleted it three times. After Liu Guang resumed work, his original department and colleagues created a new WeChat group and did not invite him in. They stood on Wu Jihan's side. Despite this, sometimes he would be assigned some work, and he would do it. "I'm getting paid, and since there is this task, I'm willing to do it for the good of the company." Liu Guang said. Zhan Ketuan has never stopped employees from doing Wu Jihan's work.
But not long ago, for unknown reasons, Liu Guang's permission to log into the internal system was also deleted. Like Zhan Ketuan, he was treated as a resigned employee by Wu Jihan's IT and his account was cancelled. Employee Zhou Ke understands the employees who stand on Wu Jihan's side. When Wu Jihan was in charge of the company, they all changed their signatures to Siliconland, and now that they have a new boss, they may not dare to come back easily. "I have to see many people go back before I dare to follow them."
Since the security company hired by Wu Jihan was paid by Bitmain, Wang Xi negotiated with them again and has terminated the contracts with four companies.
Wu Jihan still uses the old official seal and business license, and sent letters to Bitmain's suppliers, asking them to stop cooperating with Zhan Ketuan. Wang Xi's law firm also received a similar letter, asking him to stop representing Bitmain. Wu Jihan's signature is on the lower right corner of the letter, with the old official seal on top. The real official seal and business license are locked in the safe of his law firm.
That day, Zhan Ketuan left the Municipal Supervision Bureau. After carving the official seal, he was worried that he would be "taken down at once", so he gave the official seal and business license to Wang Xi for safekeeping for a while.
There are also some more serious matters that are going through the legal process. For example, after Wu Jihan came back, he once transferred a subsidiary of Bitmain to Chongqing Silicon Mainland, along with the collection account. He also signed new purchase agreements with some dealers, who paid money to Wu Jihan's account and could not get the goods from Zhan Ketuan's factory.
In response, Wu Jihan said that the purpose of setting up Chongqing Silicon Yuan Company was to "expand the southwest market" and that "Wu Jihan did not collect any money from customers. In fact, the customers paid the price to Bitmain Group, but Zhan Ketuan refused to deliver the goods."
"The futures for June have not been delivered yet, and there is no delivery for July. Some of our mining machines have been distributed to end customers, and many customers are now complaining to us." A Bitmain dealer told LatePost. In May this year, Bitcoin halved for the third time, and the computing power of the entire network dropped by 16%, making it more difficult to make money from mining. Mining machine companies are facing a new round of arms race. But before fighting against foreign enemies with all their strength, Bitmain's civil war is not over yet.
After Wu Jihan abolished Zhan Ketuan's voting rights, he resubmitted the prospectus to the US SEC. The members of the board of directors are Wu Jihan, Ge Yuesheng, and Liu Luyao. Zhan Ketuan was also kicked out of the board of directors after losing 10 times the voting rights. Recently, "LatePost" learned that Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan are in talks. Zhan Ketuan tried to buy out the options held by shareholders and employees at a valuation of US$4 billion. He currently holds 36% of the shares. If he buys more than 14% of the shares, he can regain control of Bitmain regardless of the outcome of the Cayman lawsuit.
Zhou Ke returned to Bitmain in early July. He was "a little scared" at first and waited for a while. Only after seeing that the employees who came earlier had settled down did he report to the company and HR re-sent him an offer. He felt that this was a very bizarre experience in his life, just like "the college entrance examination was washed away by a flood and the exam was postponed for one day."
But for Bitmain, after these absurd nine months, the passion, honor, and ambition to change the world are gone forever.
(Wang Xi, Liu Guang, Zhou Ke, and Wu Jing are pseudonyms. The factual information in this article has been confirmed by the teams of Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan. Wu Jihan himself declined the interview.) (LatePost)
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