Crypto Boss

The mining billionaire no one has heard of.

- Jasmine Teng

With rumors, controversy and news buzzing about its upcoming IPO, Chinese cryptocurrency-mining chip firm Bitmain has been thrust into the spotlight in recent months. Jihan Wu, Bitmain’s cofounder and co-CEO, has gotten most of the media coverage, largely because of his prominent online social presence.

Meanwhile, Micree Zhan, Bitmain’s other cofounder and co-CEO, has kept a much lower profile but owns a much bigger stake in Bitmain than Wu does. Zhan is Bitmain’s technical mastermind and owns 36.58% of the company, while Wu’s stake is 20.5%, according to the leaked preIPO investor decks. The Beijing-based company is confident that it will achieve a $14 billion market capitalization once it offers shares to the public, according to its pre-IPO investor materials. That would make Zhan’s stake worth at least $5.1 billion and Wu’s stake worth nearly $2.9 billion.

Forbes isn’t so bullish. After talking with analysts, we estimate Zhan’s net worth at around $4 billion and Wu’s at close to $2.3 billion. Forbes valued Bit- main by applying price-to-sales ratios from comparable companies including Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Mediatek and Cisco.