Bitmain
Bitmain Technologies Ltd., or Bitmain, is a privately owned company headquartered in Beijing, China. They are a bitcoin miner and designer of ASIC chips.[1] The company also operates Antpool, historically one of the largest bitcoin mining pools.[2]
History
Bitmain was founded by Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan in 2013, and has opened offices in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Fuzhou, US, Israel, Netherlands and Switzerland. Prior to founding Bitmain, Wu was a financial analyst and private equity fund manager and Zhan was running DivaIP, a startup that allowed users to stream television to a computer screen via a set-top box.[3] They originally met while Zhan was trying to raise money for the startup, however after discovering Bitcoin and becoming the first person to translate Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin white paper into Chinese, he approached Zhan for help in developing a new ASIC chip capable of mining bitcoin, at which point Bitmain was founded.[4]
In May 2016, Bitmain made a seed level investment in Wings development, a new platform which aims to bring DAO creation and management to the mainstream by presenting users with a simple UI interface.[5]
In May 2017, BitPay announced a development agreement with Bitmain to create advanced open source software for the miners, mining pools and full node operators that maintain and secure Blockchain transactions.[6]
In September 2017, Sequoia and IDG provided the company with $50 million in funding to support the company’s goal of creating innovative chips for artificial intelligence.[7][8]
Analysts estimated that in 2017 the company generated $3-4 billion in profit.[9]
In June 2018, The CEO Jihan Wu told Bloomberg that the Company is considering IPO for producing capital to expand its producing hardware. [10]
Company
Bitmain is headquartered in Beijing. It is highly profitable.[11] The company has been criticised because of its dominance over cryptocurrency mining; a position at odds with the principle of decentralisation.[11]
References
- ↑ Bitmain Reportedly Eyeing Canada for Bitcoin Mining Expansion. In: CoinDesk.com. Abgerufen am 17. Januar 2018.
- ↑ Hashrate Distribution. In: Blockchain.info. Abgerufen am 4. Dezember 2017.
- ↑ Joon Ian Wong: China’s Bitmain dominates bitcoin mining. Now it wants to cash in on artificial intelligence In: Quartz. Abgerufen am 4. Dezember 2017 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ Wu Jihan: The Mysterious Man Behind Bitcoin Blockchain Split - Lend Academy In: Lend Academy, 8. August 2017. Abgerufen am 4. Dezember 2017 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ Bitcoin’s Biggest Miner Invests in Wings Development to Make DAO Mainstream, 20 May 2016
- ↑ Bitpay’s Partnership With Jihan Wu’s Bitmain Blasted By Critics, 3 May 2017
- ↑ Sequoia and IDG to Invest $50 Mln in Bitmain, 5 September 2017
- ↑ Bitmain EU
- ↑ Evelyn Cheng: Secretive Chinese bitcoin mining company may have made as much money as Nvidia last year, CNBC, 23 February 2018. Abgerufen im 30 April 2018
- ↑ The world's largest producer of bitcoin mining chips, which is run by a 32-year-old billionaire, is reportedly considering an IPO In: Business Insider. Abgerufen am 8. Juni 2018
- ↑ a b Kai Sedgwick: Bitmain Made a Profit of up to $4 Billion Last Year In: news.bitcoin.com, 23 February 2018. Abgerufen im 14 April 2018