Jihan Wu Sells BTC.com Mining Pool to 500.com

The BTC.com mining pool, which had previously been ceded as part of a settlement to Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu, has become the property of online-lottery services provider 500.com Limited (NYSE: WBAI).

https://t.co/EkTXYHPkRx https://t.co/W2DEWTapcv Limited Announces Acquisition of https://t.co/NXJE89NSC8 Businesses
#bitcoin

— 500.com (@500lottery) February 16, 2021

The company paid 10% of its shares for the third-largest Bitcoin hashrate pool, at a market capitalization of $860 million.

According to Chinese journalist Colin Wu, 500.com is actively expanding its mining capacity in Sichuan Province.

https://t.co/1YRYr4QCmY currently ranks third in Bitcoin hashrate. https://t.co/R48OHLWlyt, originally a Chinese lottery website, has recently transformed into a mining industry and filled a large amount of Sichuan mine resources. Its current market value is US$860 million.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) February 16, 2021

In February, the online lottery services provider signed a contract for the purchase of 5900 Bitcoin mining devices for 55.2 million yuan (~$8.5 million).

In January 2021, Jihan Wu stepped down from the post as CEO of Bitmain after protracted disputes with Micree Zhang. On December 19, they reached an agreement, under which Wu received compensation totaling $600 million, comprising the BTC.com pool with the BitDeer cloud platform and mining farms outside China.

The feud between the founders intensified in November 2019, when Wu, with the support of shareholders, removed Zhang from all posts in the company. The standoff continued throughout 2020, negatively impacting Bitmain’s operations.

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