Wu Jihan’s computing power

today

From co-founding a business to splitting up and now to falling out, Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan staged a dramatic power struggle. The fate of this company is therefore full of uncertainties.

At 13:15 in the afternoon, Bitmain held a general staff meeting, and Wu Jihan reiterated the decision. According to Blockchain Report, Wu Jihan was quite emotional at the staff meeting, and he told employees, "I must come back to save this company."

Earlier today, according to official news from Bitmain: Mr. 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 remove Zhan Ketuan from all his positions in Bitmain, effective immediately. We believe that under the leadership of Mr. Jihan Wu, Bitmain will return to its original aspirations, focus on its core business, develop horizontally in an orderly manner, and become a world-class technology company.

In fact, there were early signs of changes in Bitmain's senior management. Just a few days ago, the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System showed that Jihan Wu resigned as executive director and continued to serve as manager. At the same time, the legal representative was changed from Jihan Wu to Zhan Ketuan, and Jihan Wu also took over Zhan Ketuan's position as executive director.

On October 21, Hurun Research Institute released the first "2019 Hurun Global Unicorn List", of which 11 blockchain companies were on the list. Bitmain lived up to expectations and was valued at 80 billion, ranking first in the blockchain industry. The "2019 Hurun Rich List" released by Hurun Research Institute on October 10 also showed that Bitmain founder Zhan Ketuan ranked 100th with a net worth of 30 billion, becoming the "richest man in China's blockchain." In the Bitmain team, in addition to Zhan Ketuan, Wu Jihan (net worth 17 billion), Zhao Zhaofeng (net worth 5.1 billion), Hu Yishuo (net worth 3.4 billion), and Ge Yuesheng (net worth 3.5 billion) ranked 214th, 816th, 1204th, and 1166th respectively on the list.

No one expected that the wealth-making factory seen by outsiders was so turbulent inside. What kind of turmoil did Bitmain experience under its glamorous appearance?

Internal Concerns: Who is in Charge of Bitmain?

Back in March 2019, on the occasion of Bitmain’s fifth anniversary, Bitmain released its last internal letter. In this internal letter, in addition to announcing the failure of its IPO, Bitmain also announced major personnel changes in the company, appointing Wang Haichao as the company’s CEO.

At the same time, Zhan Ketuan continued to serve as the company's chairman, and Wu Jihan continued to serve as the company's director. As the news that both of them resigned as CEO was confirmed at the time, the news that the two had been at odds and fighting each other surfaced.

In the past, Bitmain adopted a dual CEO structure, with Zhan Ketuan as the largest shareholder, holding 36% of the shares, and Wu Jihan as the second largest shareholder, holding 20.25%. As a technician who led the development of mining machines, Zhan Ketuan was able to obtain shares every time he completed the manufacturing and upgrading of mining machines, which led to his increasing shares in Bitmain. Although Zhan Ketuan does not like to attend public events, he is actually the most powerful person in Bitmain. If calculated based on the valuation of US$14.4 billion in the last round of financing before the listing, Wu Jihan's equity is worth as much as US$2.9 billion, while Zhan Ketuan's equity is worth US$5.2 billion.

On the other hand, the voting rights of the board of directors adopt an AB share structure, where each A common share has one vote and each B common share has ten votes.

Except for the two co-founders, co-chairmen and co-CEOs Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan, who hold B shares, all company management and investors hold A shares. Considering that only Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan hold B shares, and everyone else holds A shares, if we examine the voting rights except for a few major matters, we will find that Zhan Ketuan is the actual controller of Bitmain, and Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan hold nearly 93% of the voting rights.

In 2019, Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan had major disagreements on the future development direction of the company. On October 8, at the second Global Digital Mining Summit hosted by Bitmain, Wu Jihan said: Bitmain's main work is to develop IC design, mining machines and mining pool service technologies for customers, and heavily invested in BCH. Zhan Ketuan, as a technician, has a special liking for AI technology. Under his leadership, Bitmain has gradually transformed into an outstanding chip manufacturing company.

External threats: Why does Bitmain need to be saved?

01 The mining machine giant’s dream of listing

Canaan Creative, which made its first fortune by making bitcoin mining machines, had a tortuous process to go public and failed three times.

Today, this mining machine player, which ranks second only to Bitmain in terms of its money-making ability, has officially launched its fourth IPO and is making another attempt to enter the secondary market of U.S. stocks.

On October 28, local time, Canaan Creative submitted an IPO prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), intending to list on the Nasdaq and raise no more than $400 million. If the listing is successful, Canaan Creative will become China's first AI chip manufacturer to complete an IPO on the U.S. stock market.

This day was exactly 12 hours before the personnel shake-up at the top of Bitmain. Its significance is self-evident.

02 BCH price is low

Wu Jihan's forceful fork of Bitcoin's BCH made it bear the stigma of "splitting consensus" and once required a large amount of computing power and cost support.

From the birth of BCH to the present, the price of BCH has almost always been in a downward trend, and the trading volume is sluggish. This is obviously not a good answer, either for Bitmain's managers or BCH investors.

Today, the market value of BCH is hovering around $280. ​​This is contrary to Wu Jihan’s “good wishes” at the time, and the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in this have also gone to waste.

03 AI business hits a bottleneck

The AI ​​chip business is the task of Bitmain to make up for its shortcomings. According to the prospectus for Bitmain's listing on the Hong Kong stock market in 2018, its revenue in 2017 was US$2.5 billion, more than 95% of which came from the sales of mining machines, which is called "walking on one leg" in the industry.

Even though Bitmain’s mining machines have a global market share of 74.5%, the road to AI is still long. Now, in the power struggle, the departure of its former soul technical personnel, coupled with an environment surrounded by enemies, may make Bitmain even more cautious.

As of now, it is obviously unlikely for Bitmain to quickly whitewash itself and find a smooth road by relying on AI chips, and the cost is obviously very high.

Future: How beautiful is the beauty of computing power?

In the preface to the book "Everyone Understands Blockchain", Wu Jihan confessed affectionately:

Ever since humans looked up at the starry sky and began to think about "Who am I", they finally concluded that "the meaning of life is entropy reduction". All we do is to establish a tiny order for this chaotic universe.

We are as tiny as dust, but we have to fight against the universe; we only have 70 years, but we have to compete with 14 billion years of creation; this is more tragic than Sisyphus fighting against God.

What is the purpose of human existence? Even though some great philosophers have foreseen this outcome, they are still unwilling to accept this fate. Humans are born to "go against the will of heaven."

Even if one possesses top-notch intelligence, personal computing power will eventually be limited. More effective methods must be found to make further progress in mathematics and philosophy. In addition to optimizing algorithms, concentrating silicon-based computing power to serve humanity is also a good means.

Computing power may be an effective means for mankind to reach a higher civilization.

Behind the computing power is a bet signed by Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan. When Wu Jihan approached Zhan Ketuan to start a business, he asked Zhan Ketuan to develop an ASIC chip that can efficiently run the Bitcoin encryption algorithm in the shortest possible time, and he did not pay him a salary. But if Zhan Ketuan successfully developed the chip, the entire technical team could get 60% of the shares.

It took only half a year for Jihan Wu to independently develop the 55nm Bitcoin mining chip BM1380 and the Antminer S1 based on the BM1380 chip.

Wu Jihan is more responsible for external business contacts, Bitmain's mining machine division, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and other businesses, while Zhan Ketuan is more responsible for technical business, such as the research and development of algorithm chips in the AI ​​department and mining machine chips.

Without Zhan Ketuan's Bitmain, AI chips may be out of business. This is a message that has been circulating in the market.

In fact, Bitmain's previous rush to list on the Hong Kong stock market was believed to be not only to consolidate its leading position in the mining industry through an IPO, but also to use it to attack the field of AI chip manufacturing.

Since May last year, Bitmain has publicly stated its intention to enter the field of artificial intelligence, saying that nearly 40% of the company's revenue will come from AI chips within five years. In its prospectus, Bitmain even mentioned AI chips at length, and claimed to be the second largest fabless chip design company in China and one of the top ten in the world.

However, there are also voices supporting Wu Jihan. Liu Changyong, a PhD in economics from Peking University and founder of Zhimi University, wrote on Weibo that Wu Jihan is indeed the soul of Bitmain, and his understanding and contribution to cryptocurrency are also very great. He hopes he can do more and better.

Of course, many leeks may be more concerned about their interests. Huang Han, founder of the self-media Coin Market Trader, said: I just dug up the melon of Bitmain. From the public information, James holds more than 50% of the shares and his voting rights are higher than his equity. Even if the board of directors is squeezed out, he can reorganize the board of directors through the shareholders' meeting. This can only mean that the equity of the overseas entity has been reorganized or they are going to pretend to quarrel and hype BCH to cut leeks.

Original by CoinVoice, author: Sanjianke, please indicate the source when reprinting: http://www.coinvoice.cn/66390.html