Recently, I reviewed the development trajectory of the cryptocurrency industry, and I increasingly find Wu Jihan's story particularly worth paying attention to. His path almost encapsulates the entire Chinese blockchain ecosystem from nothing to something.

Back in 2011, 25-year-old Wu Jihan was still on Beijing’s Financial Street, when he happened to come across the Bitcoin white paper. At that time, Bitcoin was only $10 each. Others thought it was a wild idea, but he directly put 100,000 yuan into full position, then spent time translating the white paper into Chinese. This move seemed crazy, but in fact, it ignited the Chinese community’s interest in cryptocurrencies. He also co-founded "BlockBeats," engaging in heated debates with online users about the value of decentralization, becoming one of the earliest Bitcoin evangelists in the Chinese-speaking world.

The real turning point came in 2013. Bitcoin’s price surged dramatically, and the mining boom spread worldwide, leading to a surge in demand for mining hardware. Wu Jihan teamed up with Tsinghua’s tech genius Zhan Ketuan, and in a residential house, they tinkered out the Antminer S1, which within half a year captured 75% of the market share. By 2016, the Antminer S9 was launched, setting industry standards for energy efficiency and sparking a technological revolution in ASIC chips. Miners relied heavily on these devices and lamented that without Wu Jihan’s equipment, electricity costs would not be profitable. Bitmain thus emerged suddenly, with revenue comparable to tech giants.

The 2017 "Hash War" left a deep impression. Wu Jihan led the launch of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), causing a stir in the industry. His response was straightforward: "To advance technology, you need to forge new paths." Through forking and mining pool alliances, he deeply participated in the game of underlying protocol governance, holding the discourse power over industry rules.

In 2018, Bitmain faced setbacks in its IPO, and Wu Jihan and Zhan Ketuan parted ways due to strategic disagreements, but he did not stop. He incubated BitDeer from the mining pool business, personally went to Inner Mongolia’s mines, eating lamb and drinking spirits with miners, self-deprecating that Peking University psychology didn’t come in handy, but he learned to repair mining machines. This down-to-earth resilience built his second legend.

After 2019, Wu Jihan shifted his focus to the crypto finance sector. He founded Matrixport, pioneering the "safety cushion" model for crypto asset management, managing over $10 billion in assets. He worked on promoting licensed crypto financial operations, paving the way for regulatory frameworks in places like Singapore, setting compliance benchmarks. BitDeer was valued at $4 billion and listed on NASDAQ, building a global computing power network. Wu Jihan’s strategic investments extended into Singapore’s freeport and Middle Eastern compliant trading hubs, leading the industry toward standardization.

Looking at Wu Jihan’s strategy now, it’s no longer limited to cryptocurrencies. He proposed a combined strategy of "AI + DeFi," with Matrixport developing cross-chain protocols that integrate AI computing power verification into decentralized finance. Wall Street has a saying I find quite accurate: "Understanding Wu Jihan’s strategy is like seeing the power map of crypto for the next five years."

From translating white papers to controlling global computing power, and then to promoting crypto financial compliance, Wu Jihan has transformed his personal vision into industry rules over ten years. His story reflects the metamorphosis of blockchain from a geek experiment to a new global financial force. This "technological commercialization + regulatory synergy" dual-drive model has become an important reference in the industry. How his next plans unfold is indeed worth continuous attention.