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JOURNEY · DETAIL
Bitmain — Jihan Wu's Double-Edged Path from Mining Machine Chips to a Bitcoin Empire
Founded: Jihan Wu, Micree Zhan · Bitmain Technologies
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryConsumer Electronics / Semiconductors
RegionChina
ScaleGiant
ChannelOther
Origin
In 2013, Peking University graduate Jihan Wu saw a huge opportunity in Bitcoin mining. At the time, GPU mining machines had high power consumption and low efficiency. He brought in chip engineer Micree Zhan and founded Bitmain in Beijing, aiming to develop ASIC mining machine chips. The early team learned through tape-out failures and launched its first Antminer S1 in November 2013. It then used its integrated circuit design advantage to iterate rapidly, and around 2015 became the world's No. 1 supplier by Bitcoin mining machine market share.
Milestones
2013
Startup Turning point
Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan founded Bitmain in Beijing, with the core goal of developing ASIC mining machine chips. The first Antminer S1 was released in November 2013, with power consumption controlled at around 2.5 J/T, significantly better than GPU mining machines. However, the first-generation chip suffered multiple tape-out failures, and it took the team more than half a year to stabilize mass production, burning through early financing and nearly halting operations.
2015
Scaled shipments Growth
Bitmain launched the Antminer S7, reducing power consumption further to 0.25 J/GH, with price-performance crushing competitors. In 2015, annual mining machine shipments exceeded 200,000 units, and global market share rose to about 70%. The company's annual revenue reached hundreds of millions of dollars, and its net profit margin once exceeded 60%. Jihan Wu thus became an early Bitcoin leader, building a hashrate alliance and the mining pool business Antpool.
2017
Peak PMF
Bitcoin's price rose to nearly $20,000, and demand for mining machines surged. Bitmain released the Antminer S9, whose 14nm chip power efficiency was a generation ahead of peers. Mining machine orders for the year were booked into the next year. In 2017, net profit was estimated at more than $3 billion, making it one of the world's most profitable unlisted tech companies. It also controlled Bitdeer and mining pool operations, forming a closed loop of chips + mining machines + mining pools.
2018
Internal conflict and transformation Inflection point
In 2018, a sharp coin price crash combined with failed mining machine chip iteration left Bitmain with large S9 inventories unsold, with inventory write-downs exceeding $500 million. That same year, Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan had a serious disagreement over the direction of AI chips. Micree Zhan pushed for AI, while Jihan Wu insisted on the mining machine main business. The two founders began fighting for control, later escalating into a public power struggle. The company's gross margin was reported to have plunged from 60% to below 20%.
2020
Internal strife and failed IPO Failure
Bitmain submitted an IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2019, but was rejected due to the sharp decline in 2018 performance and internal strife. At the end of the same year, it went for a U.S. IPO, which was terminated in 2020 due to audit complexity. Internally, Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan became embroiled in a fierce equity dispute. Micree Zhan at one point seized the company seals, and Jihan Wu regained control through legal proceedings. The company's organizational structure split, core chip team members left, and competitiveness declined.
2021
Spin-off and regulatory storm Failure
In 2021, Bitmain spun off its mining farm business as Bitdeer. In 2022, Jihan Wu exited daily management of Bitmain to focus on Bitdeer. In 2022, the United States added Bitmain to the Entity List, prohibiting it from selling mining machine chips to the U.S. Mining machine export channels were blocked, and its global market share was eroded by Canaan and others. After the May 2020 Bitcoin halving, Jihan Wu misjudged the direction during the major liquidation, causing the company to lose huge digital assets and further worsening its funding difficulties.
2026
Political-business joint transformation Turning point
In 2025, Bitmain joined with the Trump family investment firm American Block to plan a Bitcoin strategic reserve base in the United States. Jihan Wu met with Eric Trump, Donald Trump's second son, seen as a key move from a banned telecom equipment maker to a political-business upstart. In 2026, Bitdeer liquidated its Bitcoin holdings and fully pivoted to AI computing power services. In Q2 2026, revenue was $228.8 million and gross loss narrowed to $8.5 million. Despite RMB 1.3 billion in debt, AI orders ramped up, making it a sample case of mining company transformation.
Turning Points
- ASIC tape-out failed in 2013, but the company persisted in iterating; the successful mass production of the first S1 marked the start of commercialization.
- In 2018, huge losses from mining machine inventory provisions and a split between the two founders sent the company from its peak into a quagmire of internal strife.
- In 2020, Jihan Wu misjudged the Bitcoin halving market and used leverage against the trend in futures trading, causing huge losses of several hundred million dollars.
- In 2021, Bitdeer was spun off, and Jihan Wu focused on AI and cloud computing power, while Bitmain's main entity completely separated from Micree Zhan.
- In 2022, Bitmain was added to the U.S. Entity List. The export ban forced the company to turn to political-business lobbying and localization partnerships.
- In 2025, it partnered with the Trump family to restart the U.S. market, moving from regulatory blacklist to strategic reserve partner.
Failures & Pitfalls
- In 2018, accumulated S9 mining machines became severely unsold due to the coin price crash, with inventory write-downs exceeding $500 million.
- Two failed IPO attempts in Hong Kong and the U.S. in 2019 and 2020 shattered its listing dream and exposed governance chaos.
- The two founders, Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan, fought internally for three years, causing a large outflow of core chip talent.
- In 2020, Jihan Wu misjudged the market during the Bitcoin halving, and high-leverage futures losses were estimated at several hundred million dollars.
- In 2022, it was added to the U.S. Entity List, mining machine chip exports were restricted, and global market share slid from 70% to less than 30%.
关键成功要素
- Achieve a generational gap in power efficiency for mining hardware through extreme ASIC chip design capability, building a cost barrier.
- Form an ecosystem closed loop through vertical integration of chips + mining machines + mining pools, locking in the miner customer base.
- Maintain a rapid iteration cadence, releasing a new generation of mining machines every year to force competitors to cut prices and consolidate market share.
- Lay out the AI computing power transformation early, shifting mining farm GPUs/specialized chips toward AI leasing.
- Leverage political-business relationships to find a new fulcrum in the U.S. market and reverse regulatory disadvantages.
Lessons
- Founder splits are the biggest gray rhino for star companies, more destructive than a market crash.
- Heavy dependence on a single coin cycle means even a slight misstep in inventory management can devour all profits.
- Global regulatory uncertainty far exceeds technological risk, so political response capabilities must be built.
- Transform early and keep enough cash on hand; Jihan Wu's painful lesson from misjudging the halving market shows you should not use leverage to bet on cycles.
Core Data
- 2017年净利润：About $3 billion (based on public sources, not independently verified)
- 2018年库存减值额：Over $500 million (based on public sources, not independently verified)
- 比特小鹿债务总额：About RMB 1.3 billion (based on public sources, not independently verified)
- 全球矿机历史最高市占率：About 70% (based on public sources, not independently verified)
- 比特大陆美国封杀后全球市占率估算：Less than 30% (estimated basis, not independently verified)
- 2026年二季度比特小鹿营收：$228.8 million (based on public sources, not independently verified)
- 2026年二季度比特小鹿毛亏损：$8.5 million (based on public sources, not independently verified)
Competitors / Peers
Bitmain has long competed with Canaan, WhatsMiner (Bitmicro), and Innosilicon in mining machine chips. Among them, Canaan listed in the U.S. in 2019 but is far smaller than Bitmain. WhatsMiner's M30 series regained some share in 2020-2022 through TSMC's 5nm process. In addition, some mining companies such as MARA Holdings have pivoted to AI computing power, competing head-on with Bitdeer in AI cloud services. In the broader new-energy mining sector, U.S.-listed companies such as MARA and Riot are expanding based on cheap electricity, while Bitmain is restoring shipments through U.S. local partnerships.