Co-founder of crypto mining giant Bitmain, Micree Zhan Ketuan, has initiated court proceedings against the company shareholders in a bid to restores his voting control of the firm.

Every bit BNN Bloomberg reported on January. 3, Zhan asked a Cayman Islands court to discredit Bitmain'south shareholders' decision to catechumen the mining company'due south Class B shares to one vote per share, while previously each Grade B share had come up with ten votes. As such, the shareholders profoundly reduced Zhan's influence over the company.

According to a 2022 initial public offering prospectus, Zhan reportedly endemic nearly 4 meg Class B shares — almost twice as much as Wu, who is the only other holder of the special stock.

Zhan's removal without his consent

The conflict between Zhan and Bitmain's shareholders surfaced in October 2022, when the company's co-founder, Jihan Wu, announced in an electronic mail that Zhan had left the company. The email read: "Bitmain's co-founder, chairman, legal representative and executive managing director Jihan Wu has decided to dismiss all roles of Ketuan Zhan, effective immediately."

Zhan reacted to the proclamation dispiritedly, claiming that he had been removed as a legal representative of the company without his consent. At the time, Zhan wrote:

"I didn't realize until then that those scenes in Tv shows, where y'all get stabbed on your dorsum by those partners you trusted and 'brothers' you fought together with, can actually happen in real life. [...] Bitmain is our child. I volition fight for her till the end with legal weapons. I won't permit those who want to plot against Bitmain to succeed. If someone wants a war, we volition give them one."

Moreover, Wu further warned Bitmain employees confronting interacting with Zhan, saying:

"Any Bitmain staff shall no longer take any direction from Zhan, or participate in any meeting organized by Zhan. Bitmain may, based on the situation, consider terminating employment contracts of those who violate this note."

Layoffs and asset freezing

Recently, Cointelegraph reported that Bitmain reportedly has plans to reduce its workforce by another fifty per centum equally part of a then-called "personnel optimization plan." People familiar with the affair assume that the reason for the layoffs is the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which will cutting the number of new coins awarded to miners past half.

In mid-December, 2022, a Chinese court froze roughly $676,000 in assets belonging to Bitmain's wholly-owned subsidiary, Shenzhen Century Cloud Core. The ruling follows an application submitted by a manufacturer of electronic components, Dongguan Yongjiang Electronics, on Sept. 24.