Bitmain Responds to Layoff Rumors From Ousted Co-Founder Zahn

Ousted Bitmain co-founder Micree Zahn took to Weibo on Monday to speak out against a reported Bitmain “personnel optimization plan” which could purportedly see around 500 Bitmain workers dismissed by January 17. Chinese media broke the story last week citing inside sources at the bitcoin mining colossus, one of which claimed poor financial performance of the company’s AI arm was part of the reason for the winter slimming. Zahn maintains the reported plan is unreasonable, but Bitmain’s official response neither confirms nor denies the downsizing.

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Reported Dismissals

The reported layoffs, which would see about half of Bitmain’s staff out of work for the winter, are speculated to be resultant of the approaching bitcoin halving and also poor performance of the AI end of the company, where Zahn is said to have put much of his focus after co-founder Jihan Wu stepped down from…