Jihan Wu is a Chinese billionaire and entrepreneur who focuses on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. He first encountered Bitcoin in 2011 and, just two years later, co-founded China’s largest cryptocurrency mining chip company, Bitmain.
Jihan Wu has a net worth of around $1.8 billion and is considered one of the top five youngest billionaires in Asia.
Jihan Wu bio
| Name | Jihan Wu |
| Born | January 1, 1986 (Chongqing, China) |
| Education | Bachelor of Arts/Economics, Peking University |
| Known for | Bitmain co-founder |
| Current role | CEO of Bitdeer |
| Current net worth | $1.8 billion |
| Peak net worth | $2.40 billion in 2018 |
Jihan Wu’s net worth
Wu is a crypto entrepreneur whose net wealth is largely attributable to his stake in Bitmain. Wu, who owns 20% of Bitmain, exited the company following a disagreement with Micree Zhan, the other co-founder.
His current net worth is around $1.8 billion, while his peak net worth was estimated to be almost $2.40 billion in 2018.
Wu’s extraordinary achievements in the crypto industry earned him a spot on Forbes’ 2020 World’s Billionaires List as one of the youngest billionaires in Asia. The Hurun Report also ranked him as the second richest cryptocurrency entrepreneur in China in 2018. Additionally, Fortune magazine placed him third on The Ledger 40 under 40 list in 2018.
Wu also has other sources of income, including Matrixport, a financial services company for cryptocurrencies he founded in 2019. He is also the chairman of mining cloud service Bitdeer, a company spun off from Bitmain.
Wu is also a leading supporter of Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork of Bitcoin founded in 2017. There are no details of his Bitcoin Cash holdings.
Wu has likely invested heavily in Bitcoin, but there are no exact details on his holdings. It is, however, known that he raised 100,000 yuan in 2011 from friends and family to purchase 900 Bitcoin.
Early life, education and career
Born on January 01, 1986, in Chongqing, China, Wu excelled at academics from a young age. After completing his schooling at Chongqing Nankai Secondary School, Wu went on to earn dual degrees in economics and psychology from Peking University in 2009.
Wu then joined a private equity firm as a financial analyst. In 2011, he encountered Bitcoin and was immediately fascinated by the idea. Wu reportedly raised 100,000 yuan from friends and family to purchase 900 Bitcoins.
There is no information about Wu’s family background and marital status.
Wu’s crypto connection
After developing a fascination with cryptocurrency, Wu founded Babite, China’s first Bitcoin community site, along with Bitcoin enthusiast Chang Jia. In 2011, Wu translated Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper into Chinese.
In 2012, Wu invested in ASICMINER, a Bitcoin mining company co-founded by Friedcat. ASICMINER was among the first companies to make ASICs used to mine Bitcoin. Though the company was initially successful, it later ran into challenges, and Wu lost his investment.
Around the same time, he also lost his investment in another mining hardware company, Canaan Creative. Wu likely then decided to establish his own mining hardware company, and for this, he reached out to the microelectronics engineer Micree Zhan in 2013.
Together, the two developed one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining chip companies – Bitmain.
Wu and Bitmain
In 2013, Wu and Micree Zhan co-founded Bitmain, a company that sells ASIC chips to miners. In November 2013, the company released its first mining rig, Antminer S1, and sales took off. However, the collapse of Japanese Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox resulted in a downturn in the crypto space.
In 2015, the company released Antminer S5, which soon became the best-selling mining equipment. With a rebound in the crypto prices, Bitmain soon became the world’s largest computer chip company for Bitcoin mining.
In 2017, the crypto mining company reported $2.5 billion in revenue. The company reportedly filed for a US IPO in 2019, more than a year after a failed attempt to list on Hong Kong’s stock exchange. Wu owned 20% of the company in 2018 (Zhan 36%), making him one of the richest entrepreneurs in the crypto space.
In 2019, Wu resigned as Bitmain’s co-CEO and officially exited the company two years later following long-term disagreements with Micree Zhan. The disagreement resulted in the spin-off of the cryptocurrency mining pool BTC.com and mining cloud service Bitdeer from Bitmain, with Wu as its chairman.
BTC.com was later sold to BTCM. In 2022, Wu acquired Le Freeport, a Singaporean maximum-security vault, through Bitdeer.
Wu and Bitcoin fork controversy
Wu has been a vocal advocate of increasing Bitcoin’s transaction capacity, which is limited due to the size limit of Bitcoin blocks. Although traditionalists rejected Wu’s proposal, Wu didn’t stop there.
After years of debate between the two sides, a Bitmain-backed Shenzhen-based mining company called ViaBTC, created Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork of Bitcoin, in August 2017.
Wu critics at the time accused him of being a mastermind behind the fork. Many even called him ‘Jihad’ (a wordplay of his name ‘Jihan’), but Wu always denied his or Bitmain’s involvement in the fork.
Other companies founded by Wu
Apart from Bitmain, Wu has been instrumental in establishing and growing many companies:
- Bitdeer – The second company that was spun off following Wu’s official exit from Bitmain. Wu is still the chairman of this mining cloud service company. In 2022, Bitdeer bought Le Freeport, a Singaporean maximum-security vault, from Yves Bouvier for approximately $28 million.
- Matrixport – Wu founded Matrixport in 2019 after stepping down as co-CEO of Bitmain. The financial services company for cryptocurrencies is based in Singapore to avoid China’s ban on cryptocurrency trading.
- BTC.com—The company was spun off from Bitmain following Wu’s official exit from Bitmain. The cryptocurrency mining pool company was later sold to BTCM, a public company.
