Recently, I saw someone discussing Wu Jihan's story again, and I have to say, this guy's experience is truly legendary. From starting from scratch to a hundred-billion-dollar fortune, the whole process was condensed into just 8 years. Honestly, it's a bit unbelievable.

Wu Jihan was born in 1986 in Chongqing. After graduating from Peking University, he went straight into the investment industry. In 2011, he first encountered Bitcoin. Relying on his professional instinct for venture capital and his meticulousness, he invested 100,000 yuan to buy 900 BTC in one go. Keep in mind, that was no small amount at the time; he must have been very bold. Two years later, when BTC rose to $750, this investment gave him the capital to start his own business.

He teamed up with an engineer named Chang Jiao, and together they founded Babbitt— the first Chinese Bitcoin forum. Even more impressively, Wu Jihan translated Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, becoming the first person to translate the Bitcoin white paper into Chinese. This version remains the most widely circulated to this day. By then, he was already known as a "Bitcoin evangelist."

But his real ambition was in mining hardware. He quickly realized that whoever could make mining machines would hold the power in the Bitcoin world. In 2013, Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan co-founded Bitmain, focusing on chip design and development. After launching the Antminer S1, with successive iterations from S2, S3 to S5 and S7, Bitmain became the world's largest manufacturer of mining hardware. By 2017, their revenue reached $2.5 billion, and Wu Jihan was named one of Coindesk's ten most influential people in blockchain.

In May 2017, Bitcoin's price broke through $2,000, and the network started to become congested, with transaction fees soaring. Wu Jihan advocated for blockchain scalability, but the Bitcoin Core team firmly opposed it. Eventually, the two sides completely split, and Wu Jihan decided on a hard fork. On August 1st, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was officially born, increasing the block size from 1MB to 8MB, boosting efficiency by eight times.

This decision earned Wu Jihan a lot of criticism in the Bitcoin community. Some called him a "traitor" to Satoshi Nakamoto, others, playing on his English name "Jihan," called him "JIHAD" (terrorist). Coindesk even directly labeled him a "villain." However, he also became the ruler of the BCH world, setting the rules himself.

Things didn't stay smooth for long. In the second half of 2018, the cryptocurrency market crashed, and Bitmain's core business was hit hard. Disagreements between Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan over company strategy also surfaced. One wanted to focus on finance and blockchain, while the other aimed to develop AI chips. By 2019, these disagreements evolved into the well-known "internal conflict." The two eventually reached a reconciliation. Wu Jihan publicly stated that he had enjoyed a journey of 2,815 days.

In January 2021, Wu Jihan officially resigned and founded BitDeer Group. In April 2023, BitDeer went public on NASDAQ, with a total market value of about $870 million. Meanwhile, Bitmain was acquired by Zhan Ketuan for $600 million, and the two founders each took their own path.

Talking about Wu Jihan, compared to those slick talkers like Li Xiaolai or the deliberately mature Sun Yuchen, he more resembles a protagonist from a fantasy novel—gifted, proud, sometimes willful like a bully. But regardless, from starting from nothing to a hundred-billion-dollar fortune, the journey itself is worth respect. He not only brought efficient mining hardware to miners but also greatly promoted the development of the entire industry. Of course, there are still many controversies about him and BCH within the community. What do you think?