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#088-2026.03.07
Born in 1986 in Chongqing, Wu Jihan is a Singaporean Chinese billionaire and cryptocurrency entrepreneur. In 2013, he co-founded Bitmain with Zhang Jincan, transforming it into the world's largest Bitcoin mining chip company, with revenues reaching $2.5 billion in 2017. He is a major supporter of Bitcoin Cash, which was born from a Bitcoin hard fork in 2017 aimed at increasing transaction capacity. In 2020, he made it onto the Forbes global billionaire list, becoming one of the youngest billionaires in Asia. He is currently the CEO of Bitdeer.
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Wu Jihan is one of the pioneers of China's cryptocurrency industry. As the first person to translate the Bitcoin white paper into Chinese, he laid the knowledge foundation for the Chinese cryptocurrency community. Through Bitmain, he combined China's manufacturing advantages with blockchain technology, once controlling a significant portion of the global Bitcoin computing power, becoming the industry's 'invisible king'.
Wu Jihan's business trajectory has always been accompanied by intense industry competition. During the 2017 Bitcoin Cash hard fork event, he was accused of being the behind-the-scenes operator and earned the mocking nickname 'Jihad' (which sounds like his name 'Jihan'). The years-long battle for company control with Zhan Ketuan is one of the most famous internal disputes in the cryptocurrency circle. After the settlement in 2021, he restructured through Matrixport and Bitdeer, continuing to play a key role in the mining and crypto finance sectors.
In early 2026, Bitdeer liquidated about 2,000 bitcoins in reserves to shift towards AI investment, marking Wu Jihan's strategic shift from 'digital gold faith' to 'AI infrastructure'—this, along with the collective transformation of mining companies like Riot, Bitfarms, and MARA, reflects the survival choices of the entire industry under pressure on mining profits.
As a representative figure of Chinese entrepreneurs in the global emerging industry, Wu Jihan has demonstrated keen market insight, decisive capital operation, and the ability to survive in the regulatory cracks. From a Bitcoin evangelist to a computing power overlord, and now an explorer of AI transformation, this cross-border gamble from cryptocurrency to artificial intelligence is redefining his position in the history of technology. He has left an indelible Chinese mark in the history of cryptocurrency, and the success or failure of his AI transformation will determine whether he can maintain his influence in the next decade.
Main reference:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertolsen/2021/12/23/billionaire-crypto-pioneer-says-market-will-grow-to-tens-of-trillions-of-dollars/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihan_Wu