November 15, 2018 12:35 AM
Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain is restructuring while preparing for its billion-dollar IPO. Despite rumors, sources have confirmed co-founder Jihan Wu will remain on the Bitmain board of directors.
Over the past few days, rumors circulated that amidst a shuffle of the Bitmain Technologies Ltd board of directors, Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain's massive mining empire, had been removed from Bitmain's senior management structure.
Nishant Sharma, Bitmain's international marketing manager, has reportedly[1] spoken out to confirm that Wu will continue with Bitmain as a co-director, but that restructuring has indeed occurred. Sharma said: "As is standard listing practice, Bitmain is restructuring its board and group structure, to ensure it meets regulatory requirements on its road to IPO."
Sharma added:
"There have been no board departures and co-founder Jihan Wu will continue to lead the company as co-chair, together with co-chief executive officer, Micree Zhan."
Though Wu is the figure most associated with Bitmain and its domination of its Bitcoin mining empire, he reportedly[2] owns just 20 percent of Bitmain. By comparison, Zhan is Bitmain's largest shareholder, with 36 percent.
Potential plans for a Bitmain IPO[3] on the Hong Kong stock exchange emerged in June 2018, as a possible route for invested venture capital firms to receive a return on their investments, and for the already successful ASIC maker and owner of Bitcoin mining pools BTC.com and Antpool to raise additional funding.
Bitmain filed its IPO[4] prospectus containing vital company data in September 2018, but concerns[5] followed that figures detailing impressive year-on-year growth were hiding poor quarterly results for 2018. In the prospectus, Bitmain had combined its Q1 and Q2 revenue, instead of breaking the two periods down. Reporting indicated that
