Ketuan Zhan threatened to cancel employee options, and Antminer made multiple overseas orders exceeding 100 million

What happened to Bitmain? Although these two incidents are not of great news value, there are some interesting points and some points that can clarify doubts.

On the 24th, an "Option Incentive Notice" signed by Zhan Ketuan was circulated on the Internet. The notice stated:

"At the beginning of Bitmain's establishment, I took out 20% of the company's shares from my own stock as option incentives for employees. After the dilution of the A/B/B+ round of financing, the proportion of shares in the employee option pool is 18.47%. The current shareholder dispute directly interrupts the company's listing process and greatly damages the interests of all shareholders and colleagues who hold options.

In view of the fact that there are some unreasonable clauses in the current option agreement, such as employee options can be canceled without reason; therefore, after the shareholder dispute is over, we will revise and sign the option agreement to better protect the rights and interests of employees.

In order to gain allegiance to the team, Ketuan Zhan threatened to cancel employee options: A "Notice of Option Incentives" signed by Ketuan Zhan circulated on the Internet. A number of insiders revealed and confirmed that Ketuan Zhan frequently used cancellation options to threaten employees in his daily work. At the end of 2018, Ketuan Zhan demanded collective loyalty from the company's management, otherwise the options would be cancelled. Regarding Ketuan Zhan's emphasis on "taking 20% of his own stock", several internal employees said that it is not true, because the employee option pool is an additional issue, and the overall shareholders (including investors) are diluted. In addition, Wu Jihan accused Ketuan Zhan of taking away the shares promised to the technical team. This statement was also confirmed by many early technical personnel. (Wu said blockchain) [2020/8/26]

All employees who have made contributions to the company in accordance with laws and regulations will be rewarded accordingly. The option rights of the mature part obtained based on the old agreement will remain unchanged, and the option rights of the immature part will be inherited by the new agreement. Let everyone enjoy the return of the company's growth. After the shareholder dispute is over, we will re-formulate the company's listing plan and launch the company's IPO as soon as possible. "

Beijing Bitmain Internal Letter: Removal of Zhan Ketuan and Zhou Feng Century Cloud Core: Jinse Finance reported that on July 13, Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. issued a letter to all colleagues of Shenzhen Century Cloud Core. Beijing Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. ( ("Beijing Bit")) has made a shareholder decision on July 8, 2020 to remove Ketuan Zhan as the executive director of Century Cloud Core and appoint Mr. Wu Jihan as Executive Director of Century Cloud Core; on the same day, Mr. Wu Jihan made an executive director The directors decided to remove Zhou Feng as the general manager of Century Cloud Core, and Mr. Wu Jihan himself will concurrently serve as the general manager of Century Cloud Core and the legal representative of Century Cloud Core. Mr. Wu Jihan has also appointed Mr. Long Zhengxiang as the acting general manager of Century Cloud Core to act as the general manager in charge of operation and management.

According to the internal letter, Ketuan Zhan and Feng Zhou are relatives. During Zhou Feng's tenure, the business and management of Century Cloud Core were in chaos. The T17 mining machine was illegally transferred and sold at a low price by Hainan Continental Ark Data Technology Co., Ltd., which holds 25% of the shares of Ketuan Zhan. In addition, Century Cloud Core also refused to deliver mining machines to external customers, resulting in overdue delivery of more than 5,600 mining machines, and owed external suppliers up to 200 million yuan in due accounts payable. See below for details. [2020/7/13]

This notice is meaningless at present, because its premise is that after the shareholder dispute is over, judging from the progress of Cayman’s lawsuit, it may take several years before the result can be reached. So why did Zhan issue such a notice?

News | Ketuan Zhan filed a lawsuit in Cayman to cancel the results of Bitmain’s November shareholder meeting: According to Bloomberg, Ketuan Zhan, the co-founder and former chairman of Bitmain, filed a lawsuit in Cayman. In December, Ketuan Zhan submitted a subpoena to the Cayman Islands court, requesting the court to cancel the results of Bitmain’s shareholder meeting held in November. The shareholder meeting canceled Ketuan Zhan's original 10 votes per share and changed it to 1 vote per share. People familiar with the matter told Wu that the blockchain confirmed the news, and revealed that Ketuan Zhan had hired lawyers from Beijing, Hong Kong, Cayman and other places to participate in the lawsuit. This lawsuit also revealed Wu Jihan’s two key steps to remove Ketuan Zhan: first, through a Hong Kong company to remove Ketuan Zhan’s legal personality in Beijing, and second, through a general meeting of shareholders, to cancel Ketuan Zhan’s B-share voting rights. According to the public information at the time of the Hong Kong IPO, Bitmain Cayman originally implemented the AB share system. Zhan Ketuan had 59.6% of the voting rights, Wu Jihan had 33.5%, and other shareholders had a total of 6.9%. After canceling Ketuan Zhan's voting rights, the shareholding structure of Bitmain is roughly as follows, and Wu Jihan has an absolute advantage. (Wu said blockchain) [2020/1/3]

According to people familiar with the matter, the key lies in that the first is to emphasize the incentive of the option part, and the second is that the option rights of the immature part will be inherited by the new agreement. The former is to "paint cakes" for employees who follow without money; the latter is to threaten employees who do not follow, and your options will be cancelled.

News | Ketuan Zhan ranks 68th among the 1,000 richest people in China: According to the "2019 China's 1,000 Richest People" list released by the interface, Ketuan Zhan of Bitmain ranks 68th with assets of 28.5 billion yuan. [2019/2/28]

At first, Zhan first proposed a 1.5-fold salary increase for employees, but then gradually reduced it to 1.3 and 1.1 times, and also divided different people and gave different salary increases, which shows that funds are tight. For Wu Jihan's side, he has temporarily maintained 2 times the salary for odd-numbered months (equivalent to 1.5 times the salary). Against this background, the significance of this notice is mainly to use "free" options as incentives, and at the same time threaten to cancel other people's options.

A number of insiders revealed and confirmed that Ketuan Zhan frequently used cancellation options to threaten employees in his daily work. At the end of 2018, Ketuan Zhan demanded collective loyalty from the company's management, otherwise the options would be cancelled. (It was also pointed out that she was still very generous to a female assistant who was illiterate and misbehaving)

Regarding Ketuan Zhan's emphasis on "taking 20% of his own stock", several internal employees said that it is not true, because the employee option pool is an additional issue, and the overall shareholders (including investors) are diluted. In addition, Wu Jihan accused Ketuan Zhan of taking away the shares promised to the technical team. This statement was also confirmed by many early technical personnel.

In addition, on August 6 and August 25, Ketuan Zhan and Jihan Wu held shareholder exchange meetings respectively. Ketuan Zhan attacked Wu Jihan's management of the company as inferior to his own, and refused to negotiate through multiple channels; Wu Jihan refuted them one by one, completely turning black and white.

Another thing is that Bitmain has recently received a number of overseas orders exceeding 100 million. On the 24th, Bitmain’s official website (the official website controlled by Wu Jihan) announced that it had signed a sales agreement with Riot Blockchain, a Nasdaq-listed company, for 8,000 units of S19 PRO, with a total value of 17.7 million US dollars (about 120 million yuan). The date is from January to April 2021, and the futures have been booked until April next year. This news was released by Riot a few days ago, and this is the first time that Bitmain has voluntarily disclosed the amount.

On August 14th, Marathon Patent Group stated that it will purchase 10,500 S19 PROs for a total of 23 million US dollars (about 160 million yuan). On June 26, Core Scientific, an American mining machine hosting company, announced on its official website that it will purchase 17,595 Antminer S19s. This is Bitmain’s largest order, with a total value of more than 200 million yuan.

You may have doubts, why are there still large orders in this case? These are announcements from listed companies, and naturally they will not be faked. In fact, overseas miners are not unaware of the current disputes in Bitmain, and they are also very worried. But the problem is that this year's mining machine production capacity is extremely limited, especially Samsung's production capacity is limited, and other mining machine manufacturers are out of stock. However, the price of the currency has continued to rise. Although Bitmain has risks, it has exclusive possession of TSMC’s chip production capacity, and its performance is better than other companies. Therefore, although it may not be shipped, customers still place orders frantically. Riot, the company, has booked futures for April next year. Another point of concern is that the mining machine itself is also a financial product. If you are optimistic about the future trend of Bitcoin, placing an order at the current price is also a good investment.

On August 6, Ant’s pre-sales official account issued a statement saying: Recently, the company’s operation and management have been subject to external interference. Some product orders originally scheduled for delivery in June-July 2020 are expected to be postponed to September-October 2020. . For products with delayed delivery, you can choose one of the following two solutions (but the two solutions cannot be selected at the same time): (1) For products whose delivery is delayed by more than 10 days due to this, the relevant overcalculation The server will issue you a coupon equivalent to the above PPS income from the PPS income from the 11th day of the delayed delivery to the day before the actual delivery; or (2) According to the contract, the delivery has not been delivered within 60 days after the written reminder , to request a refund.

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