Uncertain return date: Cheap genius, evaporated roasted cat

Fang Zhongyong, a citizen of Jinxi, was a farmer for generations.

Zhongyong was five years old and had never seen any writing tools, but suddenly he cried and asked for them.

His father was surprised, so he borrowed a pen from a neighbor and gave it to him. He immediately wrote four lines of poetry and signed his name on it.

His poems are about raising parents and raising a family. They were sent to a local scholar to read. He could compose poems on the spot by pointing to objects, and his writing and logic were both impressive.

The people of the town were surprised by this and gradually began to entertain his father, or even beg him for money. His father took advantage of this and took Zhongyong around to visit the people of the town every day, but did not let him study.

Stories about geniuses are no longer a rare thing. In ancient times, there was Fang Zhongyong, a master of poetry and prose, and today there is Jiang Xinyu, a mining machine genius.

Their stories started out equally brilliantly and ended equally sadly. Fang Zhongyong became famous for thousands of years because of the article written by Wang Anshi, and Jiang Xinyu was consumed by the media countless times because of the story of Bitcoin.

On December 15, 2018, Mixin COO Bo He posted a circle of friends, and what attracted great attention in the cryptocurrency circle was the last sentence: "Firedcat has finally returned to the team." Firedcat is the online name registered by Jiang Xinyu on the Bitcoin forum, and its literal translation is "baked cat."

The rumor that FC is suspected to be returning to the team is one of the few exciting news in this cold winter of the cryptocurrency circle.

"It is confirmed that he has not come back." Wei Yuan (pseudonym), a former entrepreneurial partner of FC, told 31QU that he has also been paying attention to this matter.

On March 3, 2015, the 37th day after Jiang Xinyu lost contact, Xie Jian, one of the shareholders of Kaomao Miner, officially announced on Weibo: "Since January 25, 2015, Jiang Xinyu has completely lost contact."

With the explosion of the "missing contact" news, the Chinese man did not see any joy in the FC Mine during the just-passed Spring Festival. Because of his departure, countless dividend expectations were dashed and the shares of the FC Mine Machine were completely reduced to zero.

Some say that he is the initiator of the nuclear era of Bitcoin computing power, some call him a genius geek, and some list his disappearance as one of the top ten unsolved cases in Bitcoin's "history". Of course, for Jiang Xinyu, who took away tens of thousands of Bitcoins, he has never been able to get rid of the controversial "label" of a liar.

▲Controversy over Jiang Xinyu’s scam in the Bitcoin forum

Bohe's circle of friends is the only source of information about where the "handsome young man" disappeared from Jiang Xinyu since he disappeared on January 25, 2015.

But faced with the fact that the shares of the BakeCat mining machine have returned to zero, and the Bitcoin dividends that were once promised, with only more than three years having passed, will those debt collectors give up easily?

Genius by luck

Fang Zhongyong, a citizen of Jinxi, was a farmer for generations.

Zhongyong was five years old and had never seen any writing tools, but suddenly he cried and asked for them.

Jiang Xinyu was born in 1986 in an ordinary family in Shaoyang, Hunan, and his life experience is quite similar to that of Fang Zhongyong.

Even the straight-line distance between their birthplaces, Shaoyang, Hunan, and Jinxi County, Jiangxi, is less than 600 kilometers, and it only takes half a day to drive from Shaoyang to Jinxi County.

▲Shaoyang to Jinxi County

This kind of similar or identical connections spanning 1,000 years seems to have been destined: the evolution and destination of its fate is just like what Wang Anshi wrote a thousand years ago, a modern version of the story of Zhongyong.

His father was surprised, so he borrowed a pen from a neighbor and gave it to him. He immediately wrote four lines of poetry and signed his name on it.

His poems are about raising parents and raising a family. They were sent to a local scholar to read. He could compose poems on the spot by pointing to objects, and his writing and logic were both impressive.

Jiang Xinyu's talent was evident in his youth. Previously, the media had described Jiang Xinyu in this way:

"Genius, geek, otaku, loser, tall and thin. Messy hair, a torn shirt, white shorts and black slippers. Drinks Yilibao mineral water, likes all kinds of food, especially crayfish. He is taciturn, but when he speaks, he often hits the nail on the head and leaves the audience speechless. He reads ten lines at a glance, believes in logical empiricism, and rejects traditional Chinese medicine. He also likes to brag. For example, he would argue with people for a long time about whether Ygritte should take off her clothes in the third season of Game of Thrones. He often bites his nails and his keyboard and mouse are dirty... Until now, his QQ signature is still: Don't panic."

We cannot verify the authenticity of the above description from Jiang Xinyu himself. Even though there are some exaggerations in it, Jiang Xinyu's talent in exams is indeed a real fact.

According to multiple media reports:

In 2001, 15-year-old Jiang Xinyu was admitted to the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China from Shaoyang No. 1 Middle School in Hunan with the 11th place in the country.

When I think about it carefully, I always feel that the statement of "11th in the total score of China's college entrance examination" is quite strange, because according to the admission method of the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China: the Junior Class of USTC adopts an independent enrollment strategy for students who have not been admitted to the third year of high school, so Jiang Xinyu's actual score should be the 11th in the independent enrollment that year, not the 11th in the national college entrance examination.

In 2009, 23-year-old Jiang Xinyu obtained a master's degree from the University of Science and Technology of China with his thesis "Using Formal Methods to Construct a Secure Thread Mechanism". In 2011, Jiang Xinyu went to Yale for a visiting scholar and took a leave of absence to pursue a doctorate.

▲Photo of Jiang Xinyu

In the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China located in Hefei City, the best option for postgraduate study is to go to a top foreign university, the middle option is to take the entrance exams for Tsinghua University or Peking University, and continuing to study abroad is the worst.

Therefore, Jiang Xinyu, who chose to stay in school for his graduate studies, had actually entered the lower ranks of the junior class, and taking a leave of absence from Yale officially put the first period in the career of this young genius.

Judging from Jiang Xinyu's growth, although his talent is outstanding, it is far from amazing. His legend was rewritten by Bitcoin, just like Fang Zhongyong accidentally met Wang Anshi in history.

Among China's 1.3 billion population, there are many such "geniuses". However, there are many talented people, but "Wang Anshi and Bitcoin" are rare.

After all, fame also requires luck.

The fame of genius

The people of the town were surprised by this and gradually began to treat his father as a guest or even to beg him for money.

In 2011, Jiang Xinyu dropped out of Yale University because he discovered Bitcoin.

Jiang Xinyu was not the only one who went to Yale to study that summer, but also his good friend Zhou Zhu. According to Zhou Zhu's recollection, when they heard about Bitcoin, they thought it was a perfect substitute for gold, which did not rely on government issuance and did not require trust in third-party institutions. "A group of homeless people who had left the government could use it to trade with each other."

Jiang Xinyu's social media accounts are full of science fiction and anarchist beliefs. Previously, some media had studied Jiang Xinyu's reading history to indirectly show that he was a fan of Ann Land, and thus consolidated his belief in anarchism: absolute individualism, rational egoism and complete freedom.

Behind these labels, Jiang Xinyu seems to have a few more high-sounding reasons to rush into the world of Bitcoin. But returning to the basics, it is nothing more than the word "profit".

Blockchain rhythm Blockbeats wrote in "Torn Cryptocurrency Circle":

During the financial crisis in 2008, Druckenmiller, deputy of financial tycoon George Soros, wanted to withdraw the funds placed in Goldman Sachs. The chairman of Goldman Sachs wanted to keep him, but was too embarrassed to fawn over him, so he had to say threateningly: If you do this, it will affect the good relationship between us.

Druckenmiller’s response: Screw your relationships, I only care about my money.

And when this sentence is applied to "the earliest players who exchanged their money for Bitcoin", it simply becomes: Fuck freedom and anarchism, I only care about my money.

If Bitcoin had returned to zero in 2015, if Bitcoin was still only $300 today, who would have the leisure to write a biography of Jiang Xinyu?

However, Jiang Xinyu's luck lies in the fact that his bet on Bitcoin was right!

On January 16, 2012, Jiang Xinyu registered friedcat as his nickname on the bitcointalk.org forum. Its literal Chinese translation is “烤猫”. Half a year later, on July 18, Jiang Xinyu registered and established the company Bitfountain in Shenzhen.

▲Jiang Xinyu’s message on the Bitcoin forum

On August 7, 2012, Jiang Xinyu conducted an ICO on the GLBSE exchange, issuing tokens called Asicminer. Jiang Xinyu divided the company's shares into 400,000 shares, holding 59% himself and the remaining 41% by shareholders. Based on the price of 0.1 BTC/share at the time, he raised a total of RMB 1 million.

Wu Jihan, who later became the “mining tyrant”, also invested 1,000 BTC, and made the FriedCat mining machine his first step into the mining machine market. Another cryptocurrency tycoon who also participated in this investment was Xie Jian, who announced on Weibo on March 3, 2015 that “Jiang Xinyu had lost contact”.

As the first Asic mining machine, the FriedCat mining machine officially opened the nuclear era of Bitcoin computing power war, and also officially led Bitcoin into a historical vortex of computing power centralization.

According to domestic media reports: In early 2013, the FriedCat 12.8G mining machine came out. At that time, Xie Jian, an investor in the FriedCat mining machine, wrote the following sentence in his diary: "I am standing at the forefront of the world, in this seemingly inconspicuous place."

On February 18, 2013, the first day that the CatMiner started working, a CatMiner mined 50 bitcoins in its first block.

On April 23, 2013, the FriedCat Mine was officially established. According to the person in charge of the FriedCat Mine at that time, "only half of the room (mining machines) were placed, accounting for 42% of the total network computing power."

In July 2013, according to the second quarter financial report of the BBQ company, on May 29, the average price per share of the BBQ mine was 2.5 bitcoins, and the dividend was 0.026538 bitcoins. In May, the scale of the dividend on that day could reach 10,000 bitcoins.

At this time, the average share price of FC had increased 25 times compared to the IPO, and as the price of Bitcoin increased, it created the first batch of multi-millionaires in the cryptocurrency circle.

A twist of fate

His father took advantage of this and took Zhongyong around to visit the people in the town every day but did not let him study.

In 2013, when Jiang Xinyu was at his most successful, he did not invest in the research and development of a new generation of mining machines, but instead made a number of micro-mining machines similar to USB flash drives and blades for sale.

In fact, according to the market environment at that time, although the FriedCat mining machine was still the only one, the overall market was already under attack. In May 2013, the more technologically advanced Avalon mining machine had sold three batches of 1,500 units in total. In July, Avalon sent another order for 10,000 chips to Switzerland.

▲In 2013, the USB mining machine of Baked Cat

Jiang Xinyu obviously did not realize the cruelty of the future mining machine market, and repeatedly distributed the company's profits to only 5%. Faced with Avalon's frequent actions, Jiang Xinyu did not slowly announce until August when Avalon sent a second chip order to Switzerland: Baked Cat Mine was preparing to develop a new 40nm mining machine.

Jiang Xinyu did not actually implement the preparation work announced in August until the end of 2013. Even after Jiang Xinyu disappeared in 2015, BBQ Cat did not have a real R&D team.

According to Jiang Xinyu's partner, "In 2013, the dividends of the BBQ Mine reached 140,000 bitcoins, but only 20,000 bitcoins were sold in order to develop new mining machines." This increased the share price of BBQ by more than 500 times, but also drained the last rations of BBQ to cope with the crazy competition in the future.

From today's perspective, Jiang Xinyu alone holds 59% of the shares of CatMiner, so Jiang Xinyu's crazy dividends have maintained the crazy growth of CatMiner's stock price to a certain extent, which has made Jiang Xinyu's personal wealth quickly enter the ranks of the few billionaires.

Li Xiaolai, the future richest man in Bitcoin, once said bluntly: "You can buy shares of the BakeCat mining machine for less than 7 Bitcoins."

This honor is an alternative proof of self-realization for Jiang Xinyu, who attended the junior class of the China University of Science and Technology but did not graduate from Yale University.

Because shortly after Jiang Xinyu was deified, he expressed his hope to fund a project to build a "Fukushima" 12 nautical miles off the coast of the United States. It does not belong to any country and has no army. With Internet access and food supply, it is a free kingdom for anarchists.

But this "free kingdom" and crazy dividend distribution are obviously not the most important thing for a company founder who holds 59% of the shares to do in the first year of his career.

Facing the fact that the price of the BakeCat mining machine has skyrocketed more than 500 times in one year, Jiang Xinyu's classmates said: "We all know that this is a bubble price. Because 400,000 shares multiplied by 5 is the market value of 2 million bitcoins, and at that time, less than 10 million bitcoins were mined in total. It is unreasonable for one company to account for 20% of the total market value."

The fall of fate

In the Mingdao period, I returned home with my ancestors and saw him at my uncle's house. He was twelve or thirteen years old. I asked him to write a poem, but he could not compare to his previous fame.

The development of the BakeCat mining machine in 2014 is just like the seeds planted in 2013.

In early 2014, because the threshold for developing Bitcoin mining machines was not high at that time, a large number of Bitcoin mining machine brands appeared on the market. In August 2013, Baked Cat Miner announced the development of a new 40nm product, but it was not until April 2014 that it received the first trial production "sample".

But the more realistic market situation at that time was: as early as October 2013, a 55nm-class GHash mining machine from Ukraine had 8 times the computing power of the FriedCat mining machine. Shortly after the FriedCat mining machine announced its entry into the 40nm chip, Wu Jihan, who withdrew his investment in October last year, had already used the 55nm-class Bitcoin mining machine to focus on developing a new 28nm-class machine.

Jiang Xinyu, who enjoyed wealth and fame in 2013, was nearly half a year behind other competitors in the pace of business competition. But mining is a race against time, so "after the delay, Jiang Xinyu's Baked Cat Miner suddenly lost all its competitive advantages.

Even the slow sales of mining machines made Jiang Xinyu lose the ability to keep up with competitors. At the end of July, facing the dimensionality reduction competition of other mining machine products, Jiang Xinyu only announced that he would develop a new 28nm mining machine, but in actual action, he only made an MPW and tested the chip several times.

When the wheel of misfortune began to turn, a social force named Lin Qingxin became the last straw that broke the camel's back for Jiang Xinyu.

In August 2014, the sluggish sales of new mining machines and the loss of Bitcoin computing power put the company on the brink of death. Because the 40nm mining machine did not have any advantages in the market environment at that time, Jiang Xinyu could not even find investors to build a mine for his new mining machine.

In September 2014, a middleman who used to sell mining machines recommended Lin Qingxin to Jiang Xinyu. According to media reports, the first time Lin Qingxin met Jiang Xinyu, he threw his pilot's license on the table. This was obviously not a normal opening statement before cooperation between two companies.

But apart from Lin Qingxin, Jiang Xinyu, who was already in a loss-making state, had no other choice.

Seven years later, he returned from Yangzhou and went to his uncle's house to ask about him. He said, "He has become like everyone else."

In January 2015, under the promotion of Lin Qingxin, the BBQ mine in Shenzhen was finally completed. However, due to the quality accident of the BBQ mining machine, the BBQ myth, which had been in dire straits, officially came to an end.

According to the partner of the FriedCat Miner, there were a total of 6,000 40nm-class FriedCat Miners placed in the mine in Huai'an, Jiangsu. Regardless of whether the mine was profitable at the time, these machines produced by Nantong Fujitsu alone had air between the gel and the mount inside the chip due to poor chip packaging technology.

This causes the packaging strip to expand due to heat after the mining machine is turned on, and the mining machine chip is directly blown up.

Lin Qingxin invested in the mine with the site and 0.4 cents per kWh of electricity, so in the face of the sudden investment loss, Lin Qingxin quickly controlled the limited mining power. Even Jiang Xinyu's mediation was evaded by Lin Qingxin.

In the days that followed, a person in charge of a BBQ Cat company who had experienced the accident said: "They found dozens of idlers from the local area and surrounded us." The leader said: "If you dare to touch me, I will hit me..."

After all, the cause of the accident was the BBQ mining machine, and Lin Qingxin was the "innocent" person who suffered the investment loss.

But when we carefully examine the causes of this mining machine accident, we seem to be able to find some hidden dangers in 2013.

If the FriedCat mining machine had been produced with Nantong Fujitsu's technology, why didn't the previous FriedCat mining machine have this problem? So the most likely result is that Jiang Xinyu had no money at the time when faced with unsalable mining machines, so he chose a new manufacturer - Nantong Fujitsu in order to save costs.

But this new manufacturer not only destroyed the FriedCat mining farm, but also made the FriedCat company's 40nm mining machine completely lose its market credibility. After all, no miner would buy a mining machine that could explode at any time just for sentimentality.

Just like what the earliest players who exchanged their money for Bitcoin really thought: Fuck the sentiment, I only care about my money.

Missing

On January 25, 2015, there were less than 24 days left until the Chinese New Year, the biggest festival of the year. However, the legendary user friedcat on the BitForum had not logged in since the 26th.

▲Looking for Jiang Xinyu's posts

Among them, in the article "Looking for Fried Cat", the author of the article mentioned that some people said that Fried Cat came to Huai'an alone for negotiations and then disappeared, while others said that Fried Cat did not go to Huai'an for negotiations at all.

In another article, other authors mentioned: On February 16, 2015, Jiang Xinyu bought a plane ticket to Thailand. It was a round-trip ticket to Thailand, and he could board the plane to return to China at any time, but there was no entry record, and he has disappeared since then.

On the evening of March 3, 2015, a netizen named "Yon_Wu" on Babbitt.com posted: "Legendary figure in the cryptocurrency world, FriedCat, may have met with an accident." He pointed out that in the three Bitcoin addresses of FriedCat, "19,000 coins were transferred away!" within a few minutes, which was worth about 30 million at the time.

On July 29, 2017, before the Bitcoin fork, Jiang Xinyu's Bitcoin wallet transferred out another 17,630 Bitcoins within a week. At that time, the amount of Bitcoin was approximately equivalent to 323 million RMB.

If Jiang Xinyu had not chosen to distribute all 140,000 bitcoins as dividends in 2013, if Jiang Xinyu had not met Lin Qingxin, who threw his pilot's license as soon as they met in 2014, if Jiang Xinyu had not chosen Nantong Fujitsu as the manufacturer of the mining machine in 2015.

Perhaps, Jiang Xinyu’s ending would not be so controversial today?

But the so-called genius is like the warmth of sunshine in the light, and like the coldness of lamentations in the darkness.

In 2018, a major event happened in the venture capital circle.

Mao Kankan, another young genius who was called a benchmark figure in entrepreneurship in the 1980s and was known as one of the "Four Young Masters of Beijing", committed suicide at home. He did not leave any last words, and the last message in his circle of friends read the lyrics of Yu Wenwen's "Dignity": "I love you without regrets, but I respect the ending of the story."

According to media reports at the time: There were many reasons for Mao Kankan's suicide, such as the company's broken capital chain, huge debt pressure, and breaking up with his girlfriend two months before his suicide. He was also reported to have severe depression.

This situation is very similar to Jiang Xinyu. In October 2014, although Jiang Xinyu married his girlfriend, he was already depressed at that time. The many problems of the FriedCat mining machine finally completely overwhelmed this ordinary boy who was known as a genius.

Whether he disappeared to escape or was killed has always been the biggest controversy surrounding Jiang Xinyu. As a genius in the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China, I wonder if Jiang Xinyu read the story of "Shang Zhongyong" in junior high school, and whether he foresaw the ending of the story in the text that would happen to him?