Crypto giants caught by Ocean Harvest for billions of dollars: Bitmain's "Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan's Love and Hate"

In 2025, we experienced the story of Chen Zhi’s Chen Zhi, with 127,271 Bitcoins: the world’s largest on-chain confiscation case exposed! These 127,000 BTC ultimately were seized by the Americans.

Following closely, Qian Zhimin’s nearly 60,000 BTC in the UK were caught and brought to justice—heaven spares no one.

And this time, our village finally began to target the big players. His name is: Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain. On December 21, 2025, Eastern Time, well-known crypto figure Bao Er Ye posted:

“I have another old friend in the crypto circle who experienced a deep-sea fishing incident. It’s said to be tens of billions of dollars, and it’s been half a year of turmoil. Fortunately, he’s come out safe…”

Current reports indicate:

The big shot caught by deep-sea fishing is Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain.

If Yongqi believes this incident is most likely directly related to the Xinjiang mining shutdown event, and also hopes to prevent asset outflow, then why are you insisting on going deep-sea fishing in the village?

Today, Yongqi will help you sort out: the love and hate between Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan, the two founders of Bitmain.

01

Love began with: the founding of Bitmain

Bitmain was established in 2013 by Jihan Wu and Wu Jihan.

Starting as: engineers and evangelists【2013】

In 2013, Bitcoin first truly entered the core vision of China’s tech and capital circles.

That year, two very different personalities stood on the same timeline.

Wu Jihan, a graduate of Peking University, was one of the earliest to systematically introduce Bitcoin to the Chinese-speaking world and a key promoter of Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper. He believes in narrative, route, and consensus—typical of the “route faction” and evangelists.

Jihan Wu, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences system, has long been engaged in chip and hardware R&D, a standard engineer-type CEO who advocates efficiency, computing power, and controllability.

One believes Bitcoin will reshape the world order; the other believes computing power decides everything. Bitmain was born out of this complementary relationship.

Jihan Wu and Wu Jihan

A founding relationship that defined China’s crypto industry and was ultimately betrayed by it—rare in Chinese crypto history, a partnership like this: from a perfect match to complete rupture; from co-defining an era to being rejected by the times.

They created Bitmain together, and also dragged it into a long and deadly internal struggle.

Peak: controlling 70% of global hash power (2014–2017)

With the advent of ASICs, Bitmain rapidly expanded to near monopoly. Quickly became the global Bitcoin hash power leader.

Antminer series miners dominated in performance and cost advantages

Own mining pools controlling hash power entry points

Chip—Miner—Pool, a three-in-one system

At that time, a popular saying in the industry was: “Hash power, in the hands of Bitmain.”

But it was also during this phase that cracks began to appear quietly.

By 2017, at its peak, the company controlled over 70% of global Bitcoin hash power, with a valuation once reaching hundreds of billions of dollars.

02

Hatred originated from: strategic disagreements

The problem stemmed from: BCH and route disputes (2017)

In 2017, the Bitcoin scaling debate led to a fork.

Wu Jihan firmly supported the large block camp, publicly backing and deeply involved in the birth and promotion of Bitcoin Cash (BCH). This was not just a stance but a comprehensive deployment of hash power, resources, and discourse rights.

From that moment, Bitmain was no longer just “a company selling miners,” but was drawn into an ideological and route dispute.

Jihan Wu was dissatisfied with this long-term. In his view: the company should focus on the most certain engineering and manufacturing, not betting on routes, politics, or ideology.

This was a fundamental disagreement—engineering rationality vs route faith.

03

Hatred escalated: internal conflicts and contradictions

Bear market and blow-up: pent-up resentment erupts (2018)

In 2018, the bear market arrived, testing human nature.

BCH prices plummeted, miner inventories piled up, advanced process chip projects faced setbacks

AI chip transformation burned huge money, limited returns

Internal company judgments diverged into two completely different paths:

Wu Jihan: long-term belief in BTC,坚持 long-term narrative, continuing to bet on ecology and route

Jihan Wu: advocating for contraction, stop-loss retreat, returning to core mining machine business, rational investment.

Should they stick to their original dreams, or cut losses decisively? Believe in Bitcoin’s future? Or just profit from hash market speculation?

It’s very much like trading markets: when the trend comes, believe in BTC, which can reach $1 million; when the market is bad, many say it will go to zero! Truly: torment.

Internal war: the last straw to overthrow the company (2019–2020)

On October 29, 2019, Wu Jihan issued an internal letter announcing: dismissing Jihan Wu from all positions; banning him from entering the company; revoking his access to the office system. Jihan Wu was blocked outside the office on the same day.

The company lost combat effectiveness amid internal strife, investors saw despair, but BTC quietly began a crazy rally from 2020 to 2021.

That’s the opportunity that waits for no one!

Without that internal struggle, who knows how much hash power Bitmain controls now?

04

Peaceful separation: are they really doing well separately?

Fate after divergence: after leaving (2020–2025)

After internal conflicts, the paths of the two founders began to clearly diverge.

Wu Jihan: leaving manufacturing, shifting to finance and capital

Gradually stepping back from daily management of Bitmain, Wu Jihan did not leave the crypto world but quickly completed a strategic turnaround:

Founded Matrixport, entering crypto asset management, lending, and structured products

Proactively avoiding heavy-asset, highly regulated businesses like mining hardware and hash power

Promoting Bitdeer’s independent development, financializing hash power, and eventually entering overseas capital markets

His focus shifted from “manufacturing and controlling hash power” to “financialization, platformization, and capital structure design.”

Jihan Wu: believing in hash power, technology changing the world!

Jihan Wu continues to focus on mining machines, chips, and hash power systems, maintaining business in mining hardware and digital asset financial services. But in reality, hash power remains his foundation—or the most familiar field. If he had persisted over these years, he would probably be very impressive.

But after growing big, he has yet to stick to the phrase: “Never forget the original intention!”

The same company, two different CEO personalities, different development directions, shaping two different fates.

05

Jihan Wu: caught by deep-sea fishing?

Jihan Wu: caught by deep-sea fishing?

Recently, rumors about Jihan Wu’s personal situation have rapidly fermented in the market. Being “deep-sea fishing” or under “detention”?

We won’t analyze or delve into this matter too much. Yongqi believes: within the village, stay low-profile! And stay legal and compliant, do business amicably!

Because regardless of the outcome: what you need to care about is whether your money has increased? Has your BTC appreciated? After the storm, can you still truly survive to see the rainbow?

But two confirmed real changes:

Although the rumors about his personal status are hard to verify, there are two relatively clear industry changes:

First: the hash resources previously related to Xinjiang are no longer part of Bitmain or its associated narratives;

Second: Bitmain’s power structure has reversed again: Wu Jihan has returned to the core power structure; Jihan Wu has been removed from actual management; the dual-CEO system has effectively ended.

They once stood on the same starting line, achieving each other; but within the same company, they have now become completely opposed.

From co-defining the mining machine era to being phased out by industry evolution; from clear division of roles to mutual consumption as opponents.

Bitmain is the industrial empire they built together, and also the ultimate stage of this relationship’s loss of control.

06

History: harmony brings wealth, trust in founders!

One company, two worlds

Whether it was the bull market that created them or the bear market that pushed them to rupture, the story of Jihan Wu and Wu Jihan is not about “who is right or wrong,” but a typical example of founder partnership governance failure.

Engineering rationality and route faith can achieve mutual success in a positive cycle; once in a downturn, lacking clear responsibilities and decision-making mechanisms, it quickly turns into internal strife and opposition.

Technical advantages cannot replace governance structures; consensus narratives cannot cover the costs of mismanagement.

The real risk is often not in the industry or cycle, but in founder relationships, control rights design, and decision-making consistency under extreme conditions.

When the founder governance fails, even the strongest technological advantage and market monopoly cannot self-repair.

And history never stops for any internal conflict. $ETH **$BTC **