1
When there is only one month left in 2021, the richest man in China has inexplicably turned into a Chinese Canadian named Zhao Changpeng who no one knows.
It is said that 44-year-old Zhao Changpeng has become the new "Chinese richest man" and "the top ten richest people in the world" with a net worth of 90 billion U.S. dollars, or about 570 billion yuan, which greatly exceeds Nongfu Spring Zhong Suisui's net worth of 424.4 billion.
Who is Changpeng Zhao? He is the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which has only been established for four years.
In other words, it only took the "richest man in China" just 4 years to complete the journey that would have taken the richest man in the Internet and traditional industries at least 20 years to complete.
This news comes from a list published by a certain domestic financial journal, but Changpeng Zhao's name cannot be found on any major rich list or wealth list in the world.
So how was this net worth of US$90 billion calculated?
According to the financial magazine, this is the final figure based on the current valuation of Binance of 300 billion, and then combined with the 30% shareholding ratio held by Changpeng Zhao.
In other words, this US$90 billion is actually only "paper wealth."
The world-recognized statistical lists of the richest people use indicators such as stocks and fixed assets with recognized values. Binance is not listed, which means that it cannot be realized in the capital market. All statistics are actually based on subjective conjectures and estimates.
What's more, cryptocurrency is also a virtual currency, and the market is highly volatile. It may rise by 50% in one day, or it may all fall in one day.
As long as there is no liquidity in any virtual currency market shares, they cannot be truly sold and exchanged for real money. No matter how high the paper wealth is, it is only artificially high. You can imagine the water content of this 90 billion US dollars.
In fact, Changpeng Zhao's Binance was able to move from China to abroad in time because of his keen sense of smell, and by the way, he reaped a wave of dividends after his competitors were shut down.
To put it bluntly, behind this news are actually some people who are deliberately adding fuel to the flames, with the purpose of attracting more "leeks" to join the cryptocurrency game with great expectations.
After all, without so many leeks, there would not be so many big names in the currency circle today.
The instability of virtual currency has always been its biggest weakness, even the famous Bitcoin.
From less than US$0.01 at the beginning of its establishment, to close to US$20,000, and then plummeting by 80%. In the bloody storm, some people did make a lot of money, but more people lost everything and lost everything.
With the introduction of Bitcoin into China, there have been many people in the history of wealth creation in the currency circle who have become extremely rich due to Bitcoin. Their net worth ranges from hundreds of millions to tens of billions. The speed of wealth accumulation is unimaginable.
There are both idealists and speculators among them. They have different circumstances and different means of making wealth, but together they have created a legendary past in the Chinese currency circle.
The whole story still has to start with a "big smart" in 2008.
2
In 2008, the subprime mortgage crisis that swept the world triggered a worldwide financial tsunami. More than US$5.2 trillion was evaporated in the global stock market, instantly devouring the assets and wealth that countless people had worked hard to manage for many years.
In September of the same year, Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old investment bank, declared bankruptcy, and the entire Wall Street fell into chaos.
The most direct cause of this financial crisis is that the United States overissued currency for its own benefit, causing inflation around the world.
While the Americans have cheated themselves, they have also hurt all countries that settle in U.S. dollars.
At this time, people have been driven crazy by the global economic crisis. They feel that even the United States, which is known as the most mature financial system in the world, is unreliable. So is there any trustworthy monetary system in the global financial system?
A month later, a "great intelligence" named Satoshi Nakamoto published his Bitcoin white paper on the P2P Foundation website.
In his description, Bitcoin is a virtual cash system that can be directly initiated and paid by one party to another party without going through any financial institution, and is completely implemented through peer-to-peer technology.
Bitcoin is not the world’s first virtual currency, but it challenges the issuance sovereignty of traditional currencies.
Since it is claimed to be the only distributed virtual currency in the world, it is not issued by any party, but mined by supercomputers, and has the characteristics of true "free democracy".
In January 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto named the block that generated the first batch of Bitcoins as the "genesis block" and immediately introduced the concept of "mining".
"Mining" is actually an important part of acquiring Bitcoins. In summary, it is the process of using a device with computing power to calculate a series of complex digital problems and obtain answers.
The answer is a hash value string consisting of 33 digits and letters. If you get the answer, you will get the corresponding reward in Bitcoins.
This algorithm is special in that the number of answers is fixed, a total of 21 million, which means that there are only 21 million Bitcoins in the world.
Because it is an algorithmic game, the overall number of Bitcoins decreases with the number of mined coins, from 50 to 25 to 12.5... basically the output is halved every four years until all are mined in 2140.
Bitcoins with serial numbers 1-50 were mined by Satoshi Nakamoto himself, which means that Bitcoin will emerge as a virtual currency that is not controlled by any government agency.
There are still different opinions on who Satoshi Nakamoto is, but it is true that he has since opened the magical door to virtual currency.
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In October 2009, the International Neoliberal Standard announced the first Bitcoin exchange rate in history, deeming the value of 1 US dollar to be 1309.03 Bitcoins.
In the beginning, people didn’t take Bitcoin seriously and treated “mining” purely as a game.
Until May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer from Florida, USA, had a sudden idea and posted on BitcoinTalk (Bitcoin Forum) that he was willing to exchange 10,000 Bitcoins for a pizza.
Unexpectedly, a netizen named Jercos actually exchanged a box of pizza worth more than 20 US dollars with him for the 10,000 Bitcoins.
This is the first transaction in the history of Bitcoin and can be called a milestone event.
These 10,000 Bitcoins are worth at least more than 200 million US dollars based on the current market value. The box of pizza used in exchange should be the most expensive pizza in history.
This incident finally sparked people's attention to Bitcoin, and then the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox (commonly known as "Mentougou" in China) appeared, and the price of Bitcoin finally exceeded 1 cent.
In February 2011, 1 Bitcoin reached the point where it could be exchanged for 1 US dollar for the first time.
Just when ordinary people have not realized the value of Bitcoin, American hackers and some drug traffickers have begun to "try it".
This year, the American "Time" magazine introduced a section of the famous dark web called Silk Road (Silver Road), where people have begun to use the anonymous and untraceable characteristics of Bitcoin as currency to carry out weapons. and drug dealing.
Due to the fermentation of this article, the price of Bitcoin began to rise continuously, reaching a peak of 30 US dollars. Later, due to the security holes and hacker attacks of Mt. Gox, the price fell back to 10 US dollars.
Thanks to the Internet, the intersection of Bitcoin in China is almost in sync with the world, and it has not even missed a step.
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In 2009, Wu Gang, who was working at a domestic P2P video website, accidentally received a promotional email from a Bitcoin company, so out of curiosity he started using the company's computers to mine.
It is said that when he left the company, he lost the system’s wallet files, resulting in the loss of 8,000 Bitcoins that had been mined, and hundreds of millions of dollars passed by.
Wu Gang later became attached to Bitcoin and founded HaoBtc, a Bitcoin bank, becoming the earliest participant in the Chinese currency circle.
Perhaps Wu Gang is the earliest person in China and the person who has mined the most Bitcoins, but he is not the real bottom-level "miner".
Starting in the summer of 2010, many domestic game equipment training studios got an extra business from nowhere: installing a program on their computers to help people mine Bitcoins.
Anyway, I keep the computer on, so the game studio becomes "training during the day and mining at night". I can basically dig out about 10 Bitcoins in one night.
Some of the mined Bitcoins were taken away by others, while others were sold in gaming groups for a few dollars each.
Precisely because Bitcoin could be sold for money, the then-famous IT media "Computer News" opened a special section to teach people how to "mine" on computers.
The "Computer News" exaggerated that more and more game studios have joined the ranks of "mining", and there are more Bitcoins on the market instantly.
A practical question also arises: Who will sell so many Bitcoins to? Who will buy again?
Although Mt.Gox was already in full swing overseas at this time, China's Bitcoin transactions were still at the stage of QQ and Taobao.
No one would have thought that the solution to this problem would be Yang Linke, a Wenzhou businessman who sells sauna equipment.
He also likes to play games. After accidentally hearing someone say that Bitcoin can be traded, he directly asked the question he was most concerned about: "Can this thing make money?"
2011 can be said to be the first year of the Chinese currency circle.
This year, Wu Jihan, a top student at Peking University, and Chang Chai, a science fiction writer, co-founded Babbitt, China’s first Bitcoin information website.
The two met because Wu Jihan was the moderator of the Chinese version of the Bitcointalk forum at the time, and Chang Chai was the most active speaker in the forum.
However, the key to Wu Jihan gaining Changchai's trust was that he translated Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, which was widely circulated in the circle and has since established his position in the currency circle.
In the same year, Zhang Nangeng, a graduate student at Beihang University, learned about Bitcoin from the Internet and developed a mining machine FPGA out of interest. He was well-known in the circle and was called "Pumpkin Zhang".
It was also this year that Yang Linke, who had a vague idea of Bitcoin, spent 100,000 yuan and found a few programmers to build China's first Bitcoin exchange - Bitcoin China.
Bitcoin China later accounted for 80% of domestic Bitcoin trading volume.
Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that so many Wenzhou businessmen have become rich after the reform and opening up.
But the website is really rough.
The transaction recharge on the website is directly transferred to two online banking accounts, and the account owners are Yang Linke's wife and mother-in-law respectively.
Under the influence of the Bitcoin trend, many virtual currency game coins have appeared one after another, such as Warcraft coins, Q coins, Pao coins, Baidu coins, etc. However, in the eyes of those who speculate in Bitcoin, they are purely childish.
Most people are still optimistic about Bitcoin. The reason is very simple. It comes from the United States and is the only virtual currency with trading value in the world. Its price is soaring every year. It is not expensive anyway, so it is good to buy some for fun.
Although everyone wants to get Bitcoin, but they feel that it is not worthwhile to spend money on it, so "mining" has become an inevitable choice.
Everyone understands the principle of "mining if you want to get rich". However, due to limited computing power of personal computers at that time, "mining" was too slow, and many Bitcoins were not mined even after months of work.
Bitcoin is a veritable gold mine. Some people want to make money through mining, but some people have already made a lot of money just by selling mining equipment.
5
In 2012, everyone in the industry was discussing an integrated circuit mining machine "ASIC" being developed by the American "Butterfly Laboratory". It was said that the computing power was extremely powerful, but no one had ever seen it.
Seeing the promising "money" prospects, Zhang Nangeng, a "Pumpkin Zhang" who was still in graduate school, immediately chose to drop out of school and founded Hangzhou Jia Nan Yunzhi, which successfully developed the first ASIC Bitcoin mining machine "Avalon".
Judging from the subsequent madness, "Avalon" is not just a mining machine, but a "money printing machine."
And his debut still needs an opportunity.
One day in March 2013, American international student Jake Smith came to Garage Coffee and deliberately proposed to pay with Bitcoin. At that time, Garage Coffee partner Zhao Dong readily agreed, and the transaction amount for a cup of coffee was finally settled with 0.131 Bitcoins.
Jake was very excited. He didn’t expect anyone in China to know about Bitcoin, so he posted a “hero post” on Bitcointalk to recruit domestic Bitcoin enthusiasts to come to the gathering. The address was Garage Coffee.
In this way, more than 30 domestic Bitcoin enthusiasts gathered at the Garage Coffee on the second floor of No. 48 West Street, Haidian District.
They are Zhao Dong, Zhang Nangeng, Shenyu, Li Xiaolai, Wu Jihan... almost the big guys who later became famous in the entire currency circle.
The salon's endless chatting from the very beginning focused on the "Avalon" mining machine manufactured by "Pumpkin Zhang".
When people discovered that the computing power of "Avalon" can reach a terrifying 70GHash/s, far exceeding the computing power of the same series of mining machines in the world, people were a little excited and then returned to calm.
Because everyone here is not short of Bitcoin, and everyone has at least a thousand of them. However, the price of Bitcoin at this time is less than 80 yuan, and this amount of money is not worth mentioning at the foot of the Imperial City.
But the name "Avalon" was remembered by everyone.
Since then, the garage coffee, which was originally a paradise for entrepreneurs, has become the "Garden of Eden" in the eyes of Bitcoin fans, and has also become the earliest evangelism ground in the currency circle.
The first person to appear was Li Xiaolai, a teacher from New Oriental.
Although he also translated Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, he is far less famous than his own "Treat Time as a Friend".
While teaching others how to use their time, Li Xiaolai spent almost all of his own time browsing external news in order to find opportunities to get rich.
Until he saw a piece of news that people in Zimbabwe were speculating on Bitcoin, he focused on Bitcoin. After studying hard for several months, he finally discovered the door to wealth he had dreamed of.
Li Xiaolai bought 2,100 Bitcoins in one go and then continued to open and hold positions. No one knows how many Bitcoins he bought.
It wasn't until the Wall Street Journal reported in 2013 that Li Xiaolai's Bitcoin wallet contained a six-digit number of Bitcoins that he became a "sacred figure" in the currency circle.
Li Xiaolai took advantage of the opportunity to establish the Bitcoin Foundation and became the earliest evangelist in the currency circle.
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Speaking of preachers, we have to mention "Master Bao".
"Bao Erye" was originally named Guo Hongcai, and he was the head of the sales department of Pingyao Beef Group Co., Ltd. In early 2013, I came to Beijing to learn how to sell beef on the Internet.
At that time, he and his wife Jin Yangyang were already married, and Jin Yangyang, who was pregnant with Liujia, immediately spent hundreds of thousands to buy thousands of Bitcoins after listening to several lectures by Li Xiaolai.
Mr. Bao was frightened and suspected that his wife had joined some pyramid scheme, so he followed his wife to attend several lectures given by Li Xiaolai. As a result, he was also "brainwashed" and simply stopped selling beef and concentrated on studying Bitcoin investment.
The reason is also very simple. When Guo Hongcai first arrived in Beijing, he bought Bitcoin for only 80 yuan, but it skyrocketed while he was attending the lecture. By November, it had risen to nearly 8,000 yuan.
In just a few months, all Bitcoin holders became rich overnight.
At that time, the currency circle organized a party in Chengdu and booked the most luxurious hotel and KTV in the area. The organizer said: "It's not expensive, only 300,000 yuan per night."
From then on, everyone who heard the story of Bitcoin went crazy, and everyone was eager to know what this Bitcoin was.
Guo Hongcai felt that an opportunity had come. He felt that Li Xiaolai's theory was too profound, so he decided to preach in person because of his good eloquence.
At the end of 2013, Guo Hongcai, who used to sell beef, made an online program called "Bao Erye teaches you how to play with Bitcoin step by step", which attracted countless Bitcoin enthusiasts with his vulgar and humorous language. "Bao Erye" also Since then, he has become a "veteran" in the currency circle.
However, there are not many "foot-picking men" with low education like "Bao Erye" in the currency circle. Most of them are educated people who long for success.
2013 was a turning point for the currency circle to become platform-oriented, and various virtual currency platforms emerged at the historic moment.
First, Wu Jihan’s Babbitt website was upgraded to Bitmain and developed the first-generation mining machine; then Li Lin, the founder of Group Buying Network, founded Huobi; and Xu Mingxing, who left Docin to pursue a solo career, founded OKEx. Formerly OKCoin.
A year later, He Yi, the beauty host of Travel TV, and Zhao Changpeng, the “richest man” mentioned above, joined OKCoin and became known as the “Three Musketeers” in the currency circle.
But for unknown reasons, less than a year later, He Yi, Zhao Changpeng and Xu Mingxing turned against each other and parted ways.
At this time, "Pumpkin Zhang" Zhang Nangeng's mining machine "Avalon" has been snapped up in the market, with hundreds of thousands of yuan per unit still in short supply.
Almost at the same time, another genius boy "Roast Cat" announced that he had also successfully developed an ASIC mining machine and became one of the "water sellers" in the Bitcoin industry.
"Roast Cat"'s real name is Jiang Xinyu, a native of Shaoyang, Hunan. At the age of 15, he was admitted to the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China with a score of 11th in the country, and later went to Yale University to study for a doctorate in computer science.
Jiang Xinyu came into contact with Bitcoin when he was studying in the United States. He deeply recognized the liberal ideas behind this virtual currency and built an Asic mining machine by himself, becoming the second person to build an ASIC after Zhang Nangeng. Miner man.
Because he had no funds, it was difficult to mass-produce the equipment, so he conducted a crowdfunding on the official Bitcoin forum and started mass-producing mining machines with the 1 million yuan raised.
Because his online name is friedcat, this name has since become a familiar nickname for people.
Roast Cat has a great business acumen. After the crowdfunding was successful, he divided the company into 400,000 shares. He holds 59% of the shares, and the rest are shareholders participating in the crowdfunding.
There are only three companies in the world that can manufacture ASIC mining machines, namely American Butterfly Laboratory, "Pumpkin Zhang" and Roasted Cat. But the butterfly mining machine has not been shipped yet, Avalon’s output is limited, and Roast Cat, which has technical advantages, quickly occupied the market.
During this period, people at Roasted Mao's company came to buy goods directly with cash every day. It was so popular that some people would queue up all night. When the company opened the next day, they would immediately drop the cash and run away with the mining machine.
In just three months, Roamao earned more than 200 million by selling mining machines and mining, and became a legend in the currency circle.
The bizarre situation in the Bitcoin circle has finally aroused the vigilance of relevant departments.
7
At the end of 2013, the central bank jointly issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks" with five ministries and commissions, denying the currency attributes of Bitcoin, and domestic transaction prices plummeted.
Due to policy fluctuations and a lack of risk awareness, several big names in the currency circle suffered heavy losses.
Zhao Dong of Garage Coffee lost 150 million due to a liquidated transaction; even Li Xiaolai lost so much that he said he wanted to open a billiard hall and no longer touch Bitcoin.
For a time, many big names in the currency circle who could not withstand the excitement washed their hands of their gold medals and left sadly.
In 2014, due to the failure of Roasted Cat's successor companies to launch second-generation chip mining machines in time, and the influx of many private mining machine brands, the computing power of the "mining machines" produced by Roasted Cat dropped to 4% of the entire network. Roasted Mao also turned its attention to one of its own "mines" in Huai'an, Jiangsu.
This mine was a partnership with others, and Roasted Mao had little business experience, which resulted in the cooperation quickly breaking down. He then "disappeared" and has not been heard from since.
It was also this year that the concept of Ethereum (ETH) was established. The development and application of public chain technology gave digital currency more application scenarios and value, and the blockchain officially debuted.
Bitcoin, as the core encrypted digital currency in the blockchain, is still an irresistible temptation.
For a time, "mines" were everywhere across the country from south to north.
But to talk about the real "mine", it has to be the mine of "Bao Erye".
This year he built the world's largest mine in Inner Mongolia, but from a distance it looked like a chicken farm, inconspicuous.
This mine is nominally his, but he actually opened it in partnership with many investors in the currency circle through some deception.
When others provide money and equipment, he is only responsible for the middleman. Each company also gives him a lot of dry shares. It is purely a "capital-free transaction."
"Bao Erye" chose Inner Mongolia because it is not only cool and dry, suitable for computer cooling, but also has cheap electricity. Compared with other cities where industrial electricity once cost 9 cents, it only costs 30 cents here.
However, no matter how cheap it is, the daily electricity bill for this mine still costs 500,000 yuan.
A lot of money was invested, but as more and more people joined mining, mining became extremely difficult.
In 2015, "Bao Erye" saw that the cost of mining was too high and the bitcoins mined were not even worth the electricity bill, so he sold the mine to Wu Jihan at a low price.
He changed his position and spent 5,000 Bitcoins to buy the domestic BTC123 Bitcoin portal and served as co-founder and COO.
He also figured out that if he wanted the market value of Bitcoin to increase, more people would have to enter the market.
So, he drove an extended version of the China-made Great Wall with its own bar on a nationwide tour, promoting Bitcoin everywhere.
"Bao Erye" uses very simple and rude language to promote Bitcoin. The most famous sentence is: "In the future, a Bitcoin will reach 1 million US dollars! In my lifetime, if it is less than 1 million US dollars, I will live broadcast and eat JJ!"
Compared with the high profile of "Second Master Bao", a big man in the currency circle who has always kept a low profile has finally surfaced based on his strength.
8
In 2015, Bitmain has iterated on 4 generations of mining machines, and founder Wu Jihan has also stepped from behind the scenes to the front, becoming the most important "water seller" in the currency circle.
Wu Jihan's rise depends on two people: Ketuan Zhan and Yang Zuoxing.
In the early days, when Wu Jihan spent millions to purchase Zhang Nangeng's "Avalon" mining machine, he suffered heavy losses due to the delay in delivery. He realized that it is better to rely on yourself than to rely on others. If you want to get rich by "mining", you must have your own mining machine technology.
So he found Ketuan Zhan, a talented student at Tsinghua University, and expressed his willingness to let him invest in shares with his technology. As long as the mining machine developed meets the standards, Ketuan Zhan and his technical team can get 60% of the shares.
There must be a brave man under a heavy reward. Inspired by money, Wu Jihan's first-generation Antminer S1 was soon launched, joining the mining machine battle with Roasted Mao and Zhang Nangeng.
After the collapse of the Roasted Cat mining machine, his technical genius Yang Zuoxing was hired by Wu Jihan to Bitmain and developed the Antminer S7 with better performance, which almost dominated the entire mining machine market in the currency circle.
However, because Yang Zuoxing joined, Ketuan Zhan felt unhappy and rejected his request for 2% of the shares. Yang Zuoxing finally chose to start his own business and established Microbit, becoming Bitmain's strongest rival in the future.
Although "Mining Tyrant" Wu Jihan regretted Yang Zuoxing's departure, he still had more important things to do.
In 2016, Wu Jihan’s Bitmain also owned two mining pools, Ant Pool and ViaBTC, with computing power reaching nearly half of the entire network.
The ambitious Wu Jihan aims to be a "talker" in the global Bitcoin market.
Due to the bandwidth problem of the Internet at that time, the Bitcoin block originally designed by Satoshi Nakamoto was only 1M in size, which severely limited the efficiency of later Bitcoin transfer transactions.
Some people in the Bitcoin circle have been discussing the issue of Bitcoin block expansion. Some people say it needs 2M, some say 10M, and some people say there is no upper limit.
However, the "free and undisciplined" nature of Bitcoin determines that these rambling discussions are worthless and there is no consensus at all.
Just when the professional Bitcoin development organization in the United States proposed a new expansion plan and the whole world was ready to acquiesce, Wu Jihan stood up and said "no" loudly.
When Wu Jihan stepped forward at this time, the domestic currency circle once again fell into depression due to policy fluctuations. He hoped to rely on Bitmain's powerful computing power to dominate the global Bitcoin market.
In 2017, Bitcoin rose by 1,900%, from US$1,000 at the beginning of the year to its peak of US$19,875. Although it subsequently encountered a bear market and plummeted to around $3,000, most people are still crazy about it.
This year, Changpeng Zhao founded Binance. As the concept of cryptocurrency became popular, Binance also grew. Together with Huobi and OKCoin at the time, it was collectively known as the "Three Digital Currencies".
Unexpectedly, in September 2017, seven departments including the People's Bank of China suddenly jointly issued the "Announcement on Preventing Token Issuance Financing Risks", which clearly stated that no organization or individual is allowed to illegally engage in token issuance financing activities. Financing activities should cease immediately.
The announcement was like a cold front passing through, and the currency circle fell into a trough again.
First, Yunbi.com was permanently closed; then, Bitcoin China was closed; and then, Huobi and OKEx successively announced that they would stop registration and recharge. Binance, which had sensed the news in advance, chose to go overseas.
At this time, only Bitmain is still strong in China. Wu Jihan announced that Bitmain has forcibly separated Bitcoin Cash BCH on Bitcoin block 478558.
In order for BCH to replace Bitcoin, Wu Jihan intends to significantly increase the price and computing power of BCH, so that more "miners" will turn their attention to BCH, making the Bitcoin network more congested.
To put it bluntly, BCH is a digital currency separated from the parent of Bitcoin. Wu Jihan is trying to reshape a new "Bitcoin universe", and he will be the only "king" of this new system.
However, Wu Jihan's goal was not achieved due to the desperate resistance of the United States and other Bitcoin core teams.
He was also called a "Bitcoin terrorist" by Americans who hated him because his English name Jihad was exactly the same as Jihad (the abbreviation of Islamic Jihad).
However, Wu Jihan's tough operation still made Bitmain earn more than 5 billion that year. The team of 500 people expanded by more than 3,000 people. With both fame and fortune, he also entered the world's super rich list with a worth of more than 15 billion yuan.
It is a pity that this massive international battle has also laid hidden dangers for the seemingly invincible Bitmain.
9
In 2018, Yang Zuoxing, who set up his own business, launched the Whatsminer M10, which far surpassed Bitmain’s trump card at the time, the Antminer S9.
However, Ketuan Zhan was dismissive of Yang Zuoxing’s mining machines. He had already invested a large amount of Bitmain’s funds and technology in the concept of AI, which directly led to nearly half of the mining machine market being swallowed up by Shenma Mining Machines.
In order to compete with the international Bitcoin team, Wu Jihan has exchanged 50,000 Bitcoins for BCH, and most of Bitmain's computing power has also been transferred to the BCH mine.
At this time, an "Ao Ben Satoshi" who inexplicably called himself Satoshi Nakamoto created a BSV based on BCH, completely destroying the original model of BCH and causing Bitmain to suffer heavy losses.
The huge crisis caused internal strife between Wu Jihan and Ketuan Zhan. Each felt that it was the other's decision-making mistakes that caused the losses.
The quarrel lasted for more than half a year and finally ended with Wu Jihan leaving Bitmain, but the PK between the two sides has not yet ended.
This year, Li Xiaolai was also dejected.
First, Yunbi.com, which he founded, earned a wave of traffic through ETH (Ethereum), and its transaction volume increased by leaps and bounds every day. But then he was interviewed by the regulatory authorities, and he has been much more careful since then.
In 2018, he couldn't bear the loneliness and was questioned due to a leaked recording, and he stepped down from the altar of the currency circle.
In a 50-minute recording, Li Xiaolai pointed out that the reason for the rise in currency prices is not due to value, saying that cryptocurrency is actually a game of "cutting leeks", and even commented that many big players in the currency industry have joined forces to defraud and deceive investors. By.
Li Xiaolai directly named him: "Binance, the largest virtual currency exchange at present, is a liar exchange, and Ruibo founder Justin Sun is definitely a liar."
Because this matter is in sharp contrast to his consistent advocacy of Bitcoin, one sentence in particular, "There are too many XX in this circle, the consensus value, the consensus of XX is also the consensus" has made countless fans feel very hurt.
In fact, Li Xiao is right. Many virtual currencies play the trick of "beating drums and passing flowers". If you want to play well for a long time, you have to constantly attract new "leeks" to join.
What's interesting is that before anyone else could say anything, Justin Sun, who was called out, suddenly jumped out and talked to himself to join in the fun.
This Peking University history student born in the 1990s was the founder of Tron at the time, and relied on self-marketing to enter the world of virtual currencies.
While in college, Sun Yuchen and Jiang Fangzhou, who was studying at Tsinghua University at the time, appeared on the cover of Asia Weekly because of an article indicting Peking University's "academic consultation" policy.
Under the cover photo of the two of them, there is a line of words: "Eggs laid by China's post-90s elite Internet."
Subsequently, Sun Yuchen changed his username on Renren.com to "Justin Sun | Cover Person of Asia Weekly".
While studying East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he imitated Chen Duxiu and started "New New Youth" on Renren.com, but was accused of plagiarism.
Seeing that his prospects as a writer were slim, he immediately changed his career path, devoted himself to the economic field, and came into contact with Bitcoin.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Justin Sun first joined Ripple Labs, an Internet finance company in Silicon Valley, and then returned to China to start his own business as the chief representative of Greater China.
Being good at marketing, he established Ruibo Tianxia Technology after meeting IDG Capital. With the concept of "air currency", he was packaged as a "post-90s entrepreneur" by the other party and made his debut in the currency circle.
His "Air Coin" was exactly the same as many flashy ICO digital currencies at the time. He could "cut leeks" just by relying on a bunch of blockchain concepts that no one understood.
The essence of ICO is a digital cryptocurrency project that is publicly offered and similar to a stock IPO model. The project team obtains technology development and funds through ICO, and investors can redeem the corresponding tokens through successful transactions, and ultimately earn returns.
At the craziest moment, the big names in the cryptocurrency industry invited on the stage were still promoting the ICO project, and someone actually used a POS machine below to ask participants to swipe their cards on the spot. The scene was comparable to a pyramid scheme.
In the early days of the ICO craze, numerous ICO coins did allow some participants to receive dozens of times returns, attracting more speculators to join.
Unfortunately, most ICO projects are purely concepts. Once the currency is not listed in time, investors' money will be completely wasted.
In this blockchain craze, it is not enough to rely solely on the ICO bosses to instigate it. Naturally, there are indispensable "trumpeters" who are waving the flag to create an atmosphere.
Under the management of a professional ICO operation team, various blockchain media emerged as the times require.
At the height of the popularity, some leading blockchain media’s soft articles could cost 100,000 yuan per article, and the content was nothing more than hyping up the ICO (token issuance) project covered with blockchain.
The wool comes from the sheep, and it is the "leeks" who continue to pay for these expenses in the end.
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In September 2017, relevant national departments issued the "Announcement on Preventing Token Issuance Financing Risks", defining ICO as an act of illegal public financing without approval, requiring the ICO platform to be cleaned up and rectified, and organizing the removal of various tokens.
The much-publicized ICO project failed, but Sun Yuchen did not give up, so he wanted to use Li Xiaolai's recording incident to gain popularity and show his presence, but others ignored him at all.
It's normal to ignore him. There is a "contempt chain" in the currency circle: people who play Bitcoin feel that "the blockchain circle is a group of people without coins who are cheating. ICO can make hundreds of times or thousands of times at most. Compared with Bitcoin, this point Money is nothing..."
But just in 2019, something big or small happened in the currency circle. Sun Yuchen, who was playing in the chain circle, let go of the "stock god" Buffett.
On June 4, 2019, Justin Sun posted on Weibo that he was hospitalized due to illness and had temporarily canceled his lunch meeting with Mr. Buffett. This matter immediately became a hot topic.
Earlier, Sun Yuchen won the opportunity to have lunch with "Stock God" Buffett with a bidding price of US$4.56 million (approximately more than 31 million yuan).
Under his deliberate publicity, no one knew about this matter.
The "Lunch with Buffett" charity auction began in 2000, and the highest bidder wins. Eating is not important. What is important is that you can have close contact with the "stock god" and become famous all over the world in an instant.
In the past 20 years, the only Chinese people who have photographed Buffett's lunch with their real names are Duan Yongping, Zhao Danyang, Zhu Ye and Sun Yuchen.
Everyone who took the opportunity to have lunch in the past would go to the banquet on time in suits and ties, and chat with the stock gods, but Sun Yuchen's "coquettish operation" made Mr. Ba confused.
But it was also due to the impact of this incident that tens of thousands of investors entered Justin Sun's TRON coin.
It has to be said that Sun Yuchen's trick of "playing hard to get" is really clever. The marketing effect of not going to dinner is actually better than going.
Sun Yuchen just didn't eat a meal, but Wu Jihan couldn't eat at all times.
After Wu Jihan left, the Bitmain market was successively occupied by competitors, and its performance and stock price declined severely. Under the management of Ketuan Zhan, who only understands technology, Bitmain is on the verge of collapse.
So, while Ketuan Zhan was on a business trip, Wu Jihan came back with the acquiescence of investors and the support of employees, and announced that Ketuan Zhan would be relieved of all positions in Bitmain.
The frightened Ketuan Zhan hurried back and immediately organized his team to launch a counterattack.
After a whole year of turmoil, the two former founders of Bitmain began to pry the company's door, grab business licenses, change legal persons and other bloody incidents, which seriously damaged the vitality of the company.
Not only was the planned IPO immediately suspended, the valuation also dropped from the peak of 80 billion to 30 billion, and there were only a few hundred employees left.
In February 2020, Justin Sun tweeted that he finally had dinner with Buffett, and during the dinner he also gave the other party Tron coins worth 330,000.
After the news was released, the market value of TRON currency immediately rose from 8 billion to 9.99 billion yuan.
In other words, the shrewd Sun Yuchen only spent 31 million yuan in exchange for about 2 billion yuan in new market value, which is really worth it.
However, when Justin Sun told Buffett that Bitcoin will be the common currency of the next generation, Buffett laughed and said: "I am sure that my grandson would prefer to inherit my wealth in U.S. dollars."
Buffett has publicly stated many times that cryptocurrency is worthless. Unlike real land or company stocks, its value is nothing more than how many people enter the market, and it can easily become a tool for scammers.
"Stock God" Buffett is bearish on virtual currencies, but this does not affect Sun Yuchen's wish to get a lot of market value for his TRON currency, and he is considered the biggest winner.
The two founders of Bitmain have been fighting for a long time, and no one can be considered a winner.
At the end of 2020, Wu Jihan and Ketuan Zhan reluctantly reached a settlement with each other through the mediation of industry bosses and multiple shareholders.
In January 2021, Jihan Wu once again announced his departure from Bitmain, and then sold half of his shares to Ketuan Zhan for US$600 million. Since then, he has focused on his overseas mining farm "Bit Deer".
Bitmain has been in decline since then. AI intelligence, which consumes a lot of money and energy, is still just a concept. The original mining machine market has once again encountered policy risks and has no signs of recovery.
Not long after Wu Jihan officially left, carbon peaking and carbon neutrality became the focus of the central economic work that year.
High energy consumption and high risk "mining" immediately became the focus of rectification. Domestic "mines" either closed down or moved overseas when they heard about it.
Wu Jihan’s “Bit Deer” is one of the mines that went overseas early, and it is considered one of the few remaining “mine owners” in the country.
All the bustle in the world is for benefit, and all the hustle and bustle in the world is for benefit.
When Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, he essentially hoped to use a safe and free virtual currency to make up for the instability of the traditional currency system.
Today, Bitcoin and various virtual currencies have become a means for countless people to obtain huge profits, and have even become a wealth tool for some criminals, completely contrary to the original intention of the designers.
Most of those Bitcoin enthusiasts back then had no background or connections. Just because they were exposed to Bitcoin, they received generous gifts from the times and opportunities, and they became evangelists and advocates in the currency circle.
But after getting rich suddenly, some people really hope to apply this digital currency in a wider range of scenarios, while more people fish in troubled waters and make profits by "cutting leeks".
It's noisy, just finish singing and I will appear.
The capital behind Bitcoin and many digital currencies is still undercurrent, and the legendary story in the currency circle is not over yet.
