Jihan Wu (Bitmain)
Jihan Wu (Bitmain)
Jihan Wu, born in Chongqing (China), is a renowned entrepreneur. He graduated from Peking University and was co-founder of Bitmain. Currently, he holds the position of Chairman at the BitDeer Group.
In January 2021, Bitmain split into multiple businesses and Jihan Wu resigned as its CEO and chairman. He now presides as chairman of BitDeer Group.
Education
Wu was born in 1986.
He attended Peking University and studied Psychology and Economics.
Career
Before Bitcoin
Jihan worked as a private equity fund manager in 2009 and also as a financial analyst.
At one point, he was an Investment Manager at China Grand Prosperity Investment.
Career in Bitcoin
Artwork of Jihan Wu
With John McAfee
Wu first discovered Bitcoin in May 2011 as a Venture capitalist looking to invest in Bitcoin related projects and first bought Bitcoins off Taobao and Mt. Gox. He created the first Chinese translation of Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper for Bitcoin and later founded the Chinese Bitcoin news site, 8btc.com. With 8btc.com, Wu was able to explain the fundamentals and value of Bitcoin which help put him at the forefront of Bitcoin in China.
Alongside Micree Zhan, Wu founded Bitmain in 2013 which developed ASIC mining chips and grew to be the world's largest manufacturer of Bitcoin mining equipment. Bitmain is the parent company for several brands including Antminer, Antpool, and Hashnest. For Bitmain, Wu is in charge of marketing, sales, and investment affairs.
Some of Wy's early investments in Bitcoin-related companies include a Seed investment in the smart contract platform Rootstock, a Series A in the Bitcoin market data provider Btckan, and a Series A in the mining pool ViaBTC.
Views on Increasing Bitcoin's Network Capacity
Although during an AMA in December 2015 Wu supported a lightning network to increase Bitcoin's network capacity, his views evolved and instead supported bigger blocks, leading to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork (in articles, Bitcoin Cash has been referred to as Bitcoin Unlimited.