Media: Bitmain threatens to sue ex-CEO to prevent a ‘second Whatsminer’

The Bitcoin mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain threatened to sue its former chief executive Wang Haichao over concerns about creating a ‘second Whatsminer’. According to Chinese journalist Colin Wu.

The original CEO and chip leader of Bitmain left and established a new company. The founder of Whatsminer is also a former employee of Bitmain, and their Bitcoin mining machines surpass Antminer. https://t.co/S0wjW89a1t

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 16, 2021

According to the journalist, Bitmain CEO Micree Zhang fears competition from former employees — warnings about infringing the company’s intellectual property rights were also issued to former employees Fan Jin and Zou Tun.

In March 2019, Wang Haichao became CEO due to a conflict between Zhang and co-founder Jihan Wu. In October the latter, with the support of shareholders, removed Zhang from all Bitmain posts. The confrontation continued throughout 2020, adversely affecting the company’s operations.

In January 2021, Wang Haichao announced his departure from the post of Bitmain’s chief and wrote in an encrypted letter that the disagreements with Zhang had been resolved “peacefully and constructively”.

In 2017, Yan Zuosin, who left the company, founded MicroBT, which produces devices under the Whatsminer brand. He was responsible for developing the flagship Antminer S7 and S9 at Bitmain, from which the company earned $1 billion in 2017 and another $1 billion in the first half of 2018.

A civil suit was filed against Yan Zuosin alleging infringement of a Bitmain patent for Bitcoin-mining equipment. In October 2018, through a Chinese intellectual-property court, the MicroBT team nullified the patent. The case was closed.

In November 2019, Chinese police detained Yan Zuosin for IP violations against Bitmain. A month later he was again arrested on charges of embezzling 100,000 yuan (about $15,628 at the rate at the time of writing).

As reported in April 2021, Colin Wu said that Zhang filed a lawsuit against MicroBT and Yan Zuosin for trade-secret violations.

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