Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain’s power struggle has been intensified as previously ousted co-founder Ketuan Zhan was mobbed when he was authorized to get the company’s business license.
On Friday morning, the ousted co-founder of Bitmain, Micree Ketuan Zhan, was reportedly surrounded by a group of 50-odd guys led by the company’s former legal representative and CFO Luyao Liu when Zhan was authorized to collect Bitmain’s business license in a local authority office, and the company’s business license has been robbed away by Liu who is also a high-school and college classmate of Jihan Wu. (In China, a business license is an official certificate issued by the authority to operate legally)
Bitmain drama
The Bitmain drama reached its climax when the company’s co-founder Jihan Wu abruptly sent an email to all staff announcing that co-founder Micree Zhan had been ousted and that he had taken over the roles of executive director and legal representative of Bitmain from Zhan. And on Jan.2, Bitmain registered to change its legal representative from Wu to CFO Luyao Liu as the company said it wanted to improve efficiency.
On the other side, Zhan has been fighting back with all efforts after being ousted. Days ago, Micree Zhan has just scored a partial legal victory over his former employer as the Beijing Haidian District Bureau of Justice on April 28 granted Zhan’s request to block the company from registering CFO Luyao Liu as the legal representative of its Beijing branch.
The bureau had approved the registration switch from Wu to Liu on Jan. 2, but Zhan appealed the decision in February and asked the bureau to register him as the legal representative, while the authority did not approve it at that time but only withdrawn the registration switch to Liu.
In China, naming a legal representative is much more than a formality, as the legal representative has broad powers to act on a company’s behalf and is held legally accountable for all the company’s operations.
Zhan’s return?
As of press time, public information from local authorities has shown no changes about the company (majorly due to the lag of info update). It seems Zhan has been approved as Bitmain’s legal representative again, as only the legal person of a company could be authorized to get the company’s business license. According to lawyers, if the change has been registered, even if the business license is robbed, it will not affect Zhan’s roles and actions as a legal person.
The drawn-out power struggle inside the management has cast a shadow over the performance of the world’s largest bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer. The company has reportedly lost a big market share to its competitors in 2019 when the company was under Zhan’s control, but bounced back after co-founder Jihan Wu regained the control of Bitmain.
The crude move from the Jihan’s camp this morning is dramatic and childish, for which Zhan has called the police and Liu has been arrested for “robbery” hours later.
In the meanwhile this morning, Jihan Wu responded to “Zhan’s Return” through Wechat, telling people not to believe his bullshit and accusing publicly that “Zhan has ruined Bitmain’s upward momentum and destroyed over billion dollars of the company’s value”.
8btc has reached out to Bitmain for comments on the happenings but has yet to hear back from the company. This story will be updated, should we receive a response.
Update: In a response to reports that Ketuan Zhan has allegedly become the legal representative of Bitmain, Bitmain has just made an announcement on its official WeChat account, claiming that Zhan has no roles in the company and is no longer legal person of Beijing Bitmain Tech. Ltd. and Liu is the company’s new legal representative. “He has feigned his status as the legal person of Bitmain which is denied by our company and would be held legally accountable. The business license has been wrongfully registered by the staff of some regulating bodies, which is in violation of the Corporation Law”.
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