Text: Xinyu, AK, "AIO News Figures"

Editor: Ruochen

2018 was the year when digital currencies went from the peak of the bull market to the low of the bear market. On January 8 alone, the price of Bitcoin fell from $16,000 to around $2,000. There was a joke at the time that "there are many more millionaires on the street, and these people used to be billionaires."

But in this trough, one company is planning a magnificent breakthrough.

Canaan Inc. rings the bell on Nasdaq

On November 21, 2019, Canaan Inc. rang the bell for listing on Nasdaq, and the "first blockchain stock" was born. According to the participants' later recollections, Canaan Inc.'s listing created two "Nasdaq records" at the time - the largest number of people attending the bell ringing and the largest number of people watching the listing live broadcast in history. Whether it is domestic or overseas, blockchain practitioners or investors, Canaan's successful listing is no less than a nuclear bomb, which has made the entire Chinese community in the blockchain industry boil, and also given countless builders in the cold winter a shot in the arm.

Behind this milestone event, there is an important person who has contributed to it - Kong Jianping (former co-chairman of the board of directors of Canaan Inc., current founder and chairman of Nano Labs). As the first issue of the "AIO News Characters" column, this article will take Kong Jianping as the protagonist and take everyone to observe his character story up close.

Kong Jianping

seed

Kong Jianping, English name Jack Kong, was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang in 1985. In the fall of 2004, 19-year-old Kong Jianping passed the college entrance examination and came to Wenzhou University to study law, which opened his rich and fulfilling university life. The seeds of entrepreneurship were also quietly planted during this period.

"I don't want to ask my family for money anymore, I can do it myself." Many years later, Kong Jianping explained his college entrepreneurial career, "But since I had no work experience in the early days, I could only start with the 'milk delivery' activity organized by the school club." He got up at five or six in the morning every day to deliver milk to the dormitory buildings of the school. Although a bottle of milk only cost a few cents, it was a small income for Kong Jianping, and it also changed his habit of getting up late. The most important thing is that he finally took the first step. After a long preparation, Kong Jianping, a junior, founded his own campus studio - Hongtuo Studio. In his spare time, Kong Jianping often took the bus to the city to communicate with off-campus institutions. After many communications, he successfully introduced campus training projects such as driving school training and accounting qualification training into the studio. After more than a year of hard operation, the studio developed rapidly, and the monthly income once reached hundreds of thousands of yuan. Hongtuo Studio also became one of the most profitable studios in the school at that time.

"There is no absolute conflict between most professions and entrepreneurship. For entrepreneurs, they should seize the opportunity when they encounter it." Kong Jianping's past entrepreneurial experiences also gave him more courage. "Now is far from enough." Finally, after graduating from law school, Kong Jianping decided to go into business. "Maybe I can make a bigger career, or even create a new world and civilization." This seemingly unrealistic and idealistic seed officially took root in Kong Jianping's heart and accompanied him into the future.

The first tree

In 2013, Canaan invented the world's first Bitcoin ASIC mining machine, the "Avalon I". At that time, the price of Bitcoin was soaring from $13 to more than $1,000, and Kong Jianping bought an old Avalon I mining machine from the second-hand market.

The world's first Bitcoin ASIC miner

At the end of that year, the Bitcoin market was like a roller coaster. After soaring, it suddenly plummeted, and many cryptocurrency traders suffered heavy losses. Obviously, this mining machine did not make Kong Jianping money, but instead made him lose money. "Although I lost a lot of money at the time, I feel that this industry is very promising. Human beings must experience a profound blockchain revolution in the future. This decentralized blockchain technology will subvert various industries in the future, and the subversion has already begun." Based on this extreme belief, Kong Jianping resolutely invested in Canaan Technology in 2015 despite the early losses and continued to increase his investment in the future, becoming the company's third largest shareholder and entering the core management.

As the world's first manufacturer of ASIC mining machines, Kong Jianping once made a bold statement in his circle of friends in 2015, "We want to expand the company to a value of 100 billion." Many friends said that it was too idealistic and thought that 1 billion would be good enough. With the development of Canaan's AI chip business in 2016, two years later, in 2017, Canaan Technology's valuation in the industry has quickly surpassed 100 billion. On August 8, 2018, Canaan Technology first achieved mass production of 7nm ASIC mining machine chips, one month earlier than Huawei's release. In September, the first generation of artificial intelligence chip Kendryte (model K210) also achieved mass production. It is the world's first commercial chip based on edge computing RISC-V. As of June 30, 2019, Canaan is the world's second largest manufacturer of Bitcoin mining machines. During the same period, the Bitcoin mining machines sold by Canaan accounted for 21.9% of the total computing power of all Bitcoin mining machines sold worldwide.

Looking back on the road of entrepreneurship, Kong Jianping modestly attributed it all to "coincidence". "We were just lucky. When this industry was still unknown and unrecognized, we encountered the great development of the entire industry, which allowed us to have today's scale and achievements." But Kong Jianping emphasized, "Of course you must have enough faith to stick to it." In this way, the first seed of the blockchain industry was planted ten years ago and quickly took root and sprouted. It not only became a towering tree, but also led to the birth of a forest. The listing of the "first blockchain stock" not only promoted the blockchain industry to move towards the mainstream world, but also guided the many confused companies in the industry at that time in a new direction.

The second tree

In 2020, Kong Jianping officially left Canaan Inc. due to the expiration of his term as co-chairman and director of the company's board of directors. Subsequently, he and his good friend Sun Qifeng officially founded Nano Labs (hereinafter referred to as Nano Labs), just like the young man at the beginning, and once again cast a new seed in his ideal world.

In an open letter, Kong Jianping said: "In the era of the Metaverse, there may be opportunities for innovation that have never been seen in human history. Innovations in the Metaverse will be born in seconds! The Metaverse will be the melting pot and touchstone of human technological innovation! We believe that the Metaverse is a new era of human civilization. Maybe my understanding of the Metaverse is still immature and carries too many marks of the material world, but the best way to predict the future is to create, and we will keep working hard. Salute to Satoshi Nakamoto and thank you for this great era!"

Perhaps from the mouths of others, all this seems more like a fantasy. But when this seemingly unrealistic "idealism" is combined with Kong Jianping's practical spirit, it may really become a reality. Today, Kong Jianping is leading the team of Nano-Tech to work hard to realize the lofty dream of "weaving the underlying network of the metaverse".

As a service provider of the underlying infrastructure of the Metaverse, Nano Labs has a clear core goal, which is to provide solid infrastructure for Web3 and the Metaverse track and become the "Power of Metaverse". Nano Labs lived up to expectations and achieved a revenue of 39.44 million yuan in the second year of its establishment, as well as a 20 million US dollar equity financing led by Yongwan Capital, followed by Hashkey and several other investors. Even more amazing is that in just two years, on July 12, 2022, Nano Labs was successfully listed on the Nasdaq, with a market value of 637 million US dollars.

After Nano Labs went public, it incubated new businesses such as iPollo 3D elastic computing network and pineapple 3D printing. iPollo provides low-cost, high-efficiency computing services for the Metaverse track, while pineapple 3D printing turns the blueprints and IPs in the Metaverse into physical objects and integrates them into people's real life.

The new sapling has apparently grown up.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee and Nano Labs founder Kong Jianping exchanged views on the Metaverse

From the founding of Canaan Technology in 2013 to leading the new entrepreneurial team of Nano Labs today, Kong Jianping has experienced the precipitation of years and the baptism of setbacks. He is still looking to the future as an "idealist" and is always practicing it. Life is not just about the present, but also about poetry and the distance. "Idealism" is not the patent of a certain generation or a certain type of people, but when dreams really reflect reality, every story belonging to it is worthy of respect. You know, in this booming era of rapid change, only by moving forward can you have real surprises.

Now, Kong Jianping is working hard for the development of the Chinese Web3 industry, and his efforts have been recognized by the industry. In April 2023, Kong Jianping was officially appointed as a director of Hong Kong Cyberport by the Hong Kong government, shouldering a new responsibility to help China's Web3, represented by Hong Kong, seize new global heights.

“The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The second best time is now.”

The story of Kong Jianping and Web3 continues.