Editor's Note: This article comes fromDeep Chain Finance (ID: deepchainvip)Editor's Note: This article comes from
Deep Chain Finance (ID: deepchainvip)
, Author: Menrenbuliang, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
Wu Jihan won.
With the official announcement of Bitmain, the game of power between the two founders of the mining giant has temporarily come to an end.
The statement is as follows: Mr. Wu Jihan, the founder of Bitmain, chairman of the board of directors of Bitmain Group, legal representative and executive director of Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd., has decided to remove Ketuan Zhan from all positions in Bitmain, effective immediately. We believe that under the leadership of Mr. Wu Jihan, Bitmain will return to its original aspirations, focus on its main business, develop orderly and horizontally, and become a world-leading technology company.
Kill decisively.
Who would have thought that more than 8 months ago, Wu Jihan was still recognized by the outside world as a down-and-out "out."
secondary title
"Wu Jihan's "Revenge""
On October 27, the day before the Shenzhen Security Expo, Bitmain released the third-generation intelligent server SA5 in Shenzhen. This AI server is equipped with the BM1684 AI chip released in September, and it is mainly for the field of video and image intelligent analysis.
Ketuan Zhan, chairman of Bitmain, also came to the scene and said at the press conference that the market size of structured video in the next 3-5 years will be 10,000 times that of today, and a 100-fold reduction in the price of structured video for a single channel is a reasonable level .
At the event site, Ketuan Zhan also accepted media interviews, full of confidence, and talked about Bitmain's future strategic planning in the field of artificial intelligence.
However, what he never expected was that in Beijing thousands of miles away, Wu Jihan, another founder of Bitmain, was planning a "war".
The battle for power officially started on October 28.
On October 28, according to information from the National Industrial and Commercial Registration System, Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. underwent a change of industrial and commercial status. The legal representative was changed from Ketuan Zhan to Jihan Wu. In addition, Jihan Wu also took over Ketuan Zhan as executive director.
At 11 a.m. on October 29th, Wu Jihan sent an email to all employees in Bitmain, saying that he decided to remove Ketuan Zhan from all positions in Bitmain with immediate effect. Any employee of Bitmain shall no longer carry out the instructions of Zhan Ketuan, and shall not participate in meetings convened by Zhan Ketuan. If there is any violation, the company will consider terminating the labor contract according to the severity of the circumstances; if it causes damage to the company's economic interests, the company will pursue civil or criminal responsibility according to law.
In addition, Bitmain employees revealed to Deeplink Finance that the heads of AntPool and BTC.COM, two mining pools under Bitmain, have also undergone personnel adjustments.
At 13:15 in the afternoon, Bitmain held an all-staff meeting, and Wu Jihan reiterated this decision. According to Block Rhythm, Wu Jihan was quite emotional at the staff meeting. He told the staff, "I must come back to save this company."
Successive personnel changes seem to indicate that Wu Jihan succeeded in his "revenge" and regained control of Bitmain.
At 13:15 in the afternoon, Bitmain held an all-staff meeting, and Wu Jihan reiterated this decision. According to Block Rhythm, Wu Jihan was quite emotional at the staff meeting. He told the staff, "I must come back to save this company."
Wu Jihan's close "comrade-in-arms", Yang Haipo, the founder of the mining pool ViaBTC, posted on Weibo that Wu Jihan is the earliest evangelist of the blockchain in China, the translator of the Chinese version of the Bitcoin white paper, and the world's largest blockchain company. Continental founder. It was under his leadership that Bitmain went to glory. However, due to some historical reasons, as happened many times in history, Bitmain was almost kicked out of the company he founded, and Bitmain also fell from the altar. At the most critical moment, he used an iron fist to regain control of Bitmain, hoping that he would lead the company to glory again just like Jobs.
Regarding this matter, Shenlian Finance called Ketuan Zhan, and just explained the reason, Ketuan Zhan hung up immediately, and when he called again, no one answered the phone.
secondary title
"Grudges Under the Water"
Wu Jihan, who has always been well-known, is regarded by the outside world as the head of Bitmain, but in fact, in terms of equity, Zhan Ketuan is the veritable boss.
At the end of 2017, Co-CEO Zhan Ketuan, who seldom spoke out, began to come from behind the scenes to the front of the stage, speaking on behalf of Bitmain many times, from the artificial intelligence conference to accepting an exclusive interview with "Business Weekly", announcing Bitmain's revenue in a high-profile manner.
In Zhan’s description, Bitmain is an artificial intelligence company.
Before Ketuan Zhan made a high-profile appearance, Jihan Wu had always represented Bitmain, while Ketuan Zhan rarely showed up. An insider said that Ketuan Zhan had a technical background and was not good at dealing with the outside world. Therefore, the division of labor between the two is that Wu Jihan is in charge of the mining machine market, and Zhan Ketuan is in charge of technological breakthroughs.
Ketuan Zhan's coming to the stage did not attract too much attention from the outside world at the time, but if it is replayed after the event, this is something worth pondering.
In April 2018, there was news that Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu were separating, and the era of Bitmain’s dual CEOs was coming to an end. When Shenlian Finance asked Ketuan Zhan for confirmation of the news, Ketuan Zhan denied it, saying that he was also the first Heard the news once.
In November 2018, there was a business change in Bitmain. Four people, including Wu Jihan, withdrew from the board of directors. Director", but this change did not attract much attention.
When the cryptocurrency market entered a cold winter and Bitmain made drastic layoffs, the "negative news" about the two bosses came out again.
On December 28, Tao said that a person close to Bitmain said that Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu would step down as CEOs of Bitmain at the same time. The new person who takes over is surnamed Wang. He has been in Bitmain for a while, and is currently in the transition period of the handover.
On January 25, 2019, at the company's annual meeting of Bitmain in Yanqi Lake, Beijing, Ketuan Zhan covered his face and wept, while Jihan Wu cared and supported him. However, the two seem to support each other, but in fact they have long been in harmony.
Because in the following February, there were media reports that the co-founder of Bitmain Wu Jihan had faded out of the company’s management, or left Bitmain to set up his own new company. The reason for leaving was that he and another co-founder Ketuan Zhan had great differences of opinion, and it was difficult to make a unified decision. Therefore, Wu Jihan finally decided to start anew.
However, Bitmain responded to the news with the words "pure rumor".
If it was just an unverifiable guess before, Bitmain’s internal letter in March 2019 thoroughly explained: gossip is often not groundless.
The internal letter mentioned that the board of directors appointed Wang Haichao as the company's CEO, Zhan Ketuan as the company's chairman, and Wu Jihan as the company's director. The two founders never forget their original aspirations, help each other in the same boat, advance hand in hand, and jointly grasp the strategic direction of the company.
In the eyes of the outside world, the joint CEO situation has been broken, and the statement of "jointly grasping the company's strategic direction" is proof that the two have not reached a "consensus".
Regarding the dispute between the two bosses, Bitmain internal employees also told Deep Chain Finance that Wu Jihan wanted to build a barrier by obtaining a public chain with a high consensus, while Zhan Ketuan pinned his hopes on the AI chip. When there is money, everyone can split up and try to see who is right. When there is no money, one or both of them must make concessions.
According to Zhu Zhi, who resigned from Bitmain and later founded the Coinin mining pool, Wu Jihan is a very good person, but he is also very stubborn.
After Wu Jihan’s threatening internal letter was released today and public opinion was uproared, Bitmain officially told Deep Chain Finance: Wu Jihan, the founder of Bitmain, chairman of the board of directors of Bitmain Group, legal representative and executive director of Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. Mr. Jihan decided to remove Ketuan Zhan from all positions in Bitmain with immediate effect. We believe that under the leadership of Mr. Wu Jihan, Bitmain will return to its original aspirations, focus on its main business, develop orderly and horizontally, and become a world-leading technology company.
What is the original intention of Bitmain? What is the main business?
Perhaps Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan each have their own opinions.
secondary title
"The Mystery of Undetected Equity"
According to the descriptions available in past reports, Wu Jihan wanted to establish Bitmain, and then Rajan Ketuan joined the group. Zhan Ketuan decided to join after spending a short time learning about Bitcoin.
In most people's minds, Wu Jihan is equivalent to Bitmain. However, after Deep Chain Finance investigated Bitmain’s shareholding change information, it found that the story seemed to be another version.
According to the national business information website, Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. was established in October 2013.
Bitmain’s 2013 annual report shows that when Bitmain was established, there were 5 natural person shareholders, of which Ketuan Zhan held 59.2% of the shares; the second largest shareholder was Ge Yuesheng, who held 28% of the shares. Graduated from Hangzhou Dianzi University.
At the time of its establishment, Jihan Wu was not a founding shareholder of Bitmain. In 2013, the total assets of Bitmain was 556,500 yuan, with a loss of 42,000 yuan that year.
It was not until November 2014, one year after Bitmain was established, that Wu Jihan became a shareholder of Bitmain.
In November 2014, Bitmain increased its registered capital and introduced new shareholders. Wu Jihan entered the list of shareholders with a shareholding ratio of 0.79%. Ketuan Zhan holds 58.73% of the shares and enjoys absolute control.
However, according to industry and commerce data, Wu Jihan was not on the list of the board of directors at that time. In June 2015, Bitmain increased its capital again. After the completion of this round of shareholding changes, Wu Jihan's shareholding ratio has increased significantly to 22.9%, but it is still far lower than Zhan Ketuan's 61% shareholding ratio.
Judging from the shareholding ratio, Ketuan Zhan has always been the actual controller of Bitmain, while Wu Jihan has been pushed to the foreground by Bitmain. After this capital increase and share expansion, Wu Jihan was added as a director of Bitmain in July 2015. The chairman and manager of the company are Ketuan Zhan.
The era when Wu Jihan spoke for Bitmain alone ended with Ketuan Zhan coming to the fore as the founder and co-CEO, leaving a lot of imagination for the market.
At that time, a person familiar with the matter said that any company that has two co-CEOs will inevitably make people feel that there are problems within the company.
secondary title
"The shareholding dispute: Why does Wu Jihan fight back?"
Why did Wu Jihan fight back?
According to the previously published prospectus, Ketuan Zhan is the largest shareholder of Bitmain, holding about 3.989 billion B shares, accounting for 36%, far exceeding the 20.25% held by the second largest shareholder Wu Jihan. Accounting for 56.25% of the issued share capital before listing.
No matter in terms of shareholding ratio or voting rights, it seems that Ketuan Zhan has absolute control over Bitmain.
Except for Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu, the rest of the founders only have Class A shares. The equity distribution is as follows: Zhao Zhaofeng holds 6.26% of the shares, Ge Yuesheng holds 4.18% of the shares, Hu Yishuo holds 4.18% of the shares, and Song Wenbao holds 0.72% of the shares. In addition, according to the disclosure in the prospectus, Bitmain has raised 3 funds in total, accounting for 9.92% of the equity.
Due to the adoption of the shareholding structure of "same share with different rights", Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu can both exercise ten votes per share. Why did Wu Jihan bring down Ketuan Zhan, the largest shareholder?
Lawyer Cui from Dacheng Law Firm said that the change of the legal representative does not necessarily require the consent of the original legal representative. According to the relevant provisions of the "Company Law", the replacement of the legal representative of a limited liability company or a joint stock limited company needs to be convened by the shareholders meeting or the board of directors. If the meeting makes a resolution, but the original legal representative is unable or fails to perform his duties, so that the shareholders' meeting, shareholders' meeting or board of directors cannot be convened in accordance with the statutory procedures, more than half of the directors may elect a director or the person who has the largest capital contribution or holds the largest voting rights Shareholders or their designated representatives convene and preside over meetings and make resolutions in accordance with the law.
If Ketuan Zhan, the original legal representative, was eliminated without his knowledge, it means that Jihan Wu got the support of several other founders and investors, held a secret meeting of shareholders or the board of directors, and formed a resolution to change the legal representative , and registered with the industrial and commercial department.
Secondly, Lawyer Cui believes that it is also possible that the founder of Bitmain and the investor signed a listing and betting agreement before. However, Bitmain’s Hong Kong stock IPO failed, which led to the investor’s compensation for equity, which gave him more voice and helped Jihan Wu succeed. superior.
Regarding the dispute between Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu, investors and other founders seem to have made their own choices by voting with equity.
