Bitmain spins off Antpool to focus on bitcoin mining hardware design

Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturing giant Bitmain has practically finished spinning off Antpool, currently the largest bitcoin mining pool by hash rate.

Bitmain said in a blog post on Tuesday that it hosted an interim shareholder meeting on July 26 and reported on the progress of divesting the Antpool mining pool business.

"All of the legal matters have been completed by May 1. We are currently consolidating some matters and will soon complete the relevant measures. 'Antpool' will operate the mining pool business independently overseas once it obtains support from new shareholders," Bitmain said in the blog post.

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The divestiture plan was initially revealed in January when Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu stepped down as chairman to end his year-long internal power struggle with rival co-founder Micree Zhan.

Wu said part of the plan was to spin off Antpool into "an independent company to be led by Micree." The reason given was to streamline Bitmain's business model to make pursuing a public offering easier.

The progress of Antpool's divestiture came months after Bitmain sold BTC.com to U.S.-listed BIT Mining.

With the divesture of two of its once flagship bitcoin mining pools — BTC.com and Antpool — Bitmain said it will solely focus on the development and sales of mining hardware design.

About Author

Wolfie joined The Block’s news team in 2020 and switched to the research side in 2021 to focus on crypto mining analysis. Prior to The Block, he had been a journalist at CoinDesk for three years. Wolfie has a background in financial journalism.