Former Chip Designer At Bitmain Arrested For Embezzlement

Yang Zuoxing is a former chip designer at Bitmain who is allegedly arrested on suspicion of embezzelement. The latest cryptocurrencies news feature a Bloomberg report published on December 16 which cites three unnamed sources and a police statement released by prosecutors in Beijing’s Nanshan district on December 12, as evidence for the claim.

The authorities’ statement omitted reference to Yang and its full Chinese name, mainly in order to protect his anonymity. The former chip designer has been working on processor design in the company until 2016, where he helped develop the manufacturer’s flagship Antminer S7 and S9 models. However, he left the firm in June 2016 after his request for a stake in the business was not approved by the founders Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan.

Yang then went on to found MicroBT where he succeeded and designed the Whatsminer 20 series which later became the industry’s best selling model – a status that is still kept this year. As a former chip designer at Bitmain, Yang had gathered all of his knowledge into developing these rigs.

As the rivalry between MicroBT and the former employer of Yang intensified, Bitmain had previously filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against MicroBT over the latter being alleged of infringement of a patent.

This fall, Bitcoin news outlets reported that Yang had been detailed by police in Shenzhen in order to assist in an investigation, but the impetus behind it remains unclear. Aside from omitting the reference to his full name, the Nanshan authorities did not explicitly mention either Bitmain or MicroBT – the firms associated with the former chip designer.

Anonymous sources from Bloomberg also said that his absence has compromised MicroBT’s ability to make key decisions about matters such as pricing.

In the latest news about Bitmain’s helm, we can see that Wu Jihan apparently ousted his fellow co-founder Micree Zhan from the firm this October. Zhan reportedly owns a 60% stake in the company. Before this, Wu had himself suddenly abandoned the former post as CEO of Bitmain and moved into a non-executive role on the company’s board.

All of this shows that there are a lot of ups and downs in Bitmain. As the largest Bitcoin mining chip manufacturer, it has been dealing with many issues in the past couple of years. Fortunately, nothing has (yet) affected its expertise or the quality of its chips.