Comment: Why did Wu Jihan personally open the lid? What is the problem with T17e?

Wu Jihan, known as the "mining tyrant", was very humble during the live broadcast on the 21st. He first refuted the host's claim that Bitmain's technology has always been leading, and then said:

“Bitmain’s technology has not always been leading. Especially after the great success of S9, Zhan Ketuan and his personal assistant were in charge of R&D. They were self-centered and set the wrong R&D direction. There were many complaints about Bitmain in the market, such as high damage rate and poor stability, especially the bad reputation of the T series.”

A few days later, the anger that miners had been accumulating exploded, focusing on the Antminer T17e, which has a very high failure rate and has been criticized for a long time.

This time, Wu Jihan took the lid off himself.

According to a mainland R&D personnel who has resigned, similar to what the miners speculated, the core problem of T17e lies in the BSM process (soldering heat sink on the chip surface) that the former chairman strongly promoted, followed by blind optimism about chip indicators and not leaving enough room for stability.

Seeing this, many people will definitely feel that the scene is extremely familiar, and even laugh. I believe that everyone who has come into contact with it will agree that the root cause is blind arrogance and arrogance, not listening to the opinions of professionals, and believing in the lies of their own imagination.

Before the media published the report, Antminer also issued a statement: Antminer has recently received customer feedback. We are paying close attention to the problems of some 17 series products and actively communicating with customers to deal with them. In the process, we have provided compensation for loss of income, exchange and delivery of new machines, free on-site maintenance, remote or on-site assistance and other solutions to some customers whose income was damaged due to product problems.

The T17 series was developed in the first quarter of 2019, launched in the second quarter, and started mass production and shipment in the third quarter.

There is no need to shirk responsibility for Wu Jihan, because he had to bear it. Behind the glory of returning at the end of October 2019, he actually took over a "mess": redundant personnel in unprofitable businesses, the 17 series was not competitive, not to mention the T17e bomb. As a non-technical person, he needed to lead the company to turn around in S19 and lay off employees. This time he had to uncover this bomb himself.

Wu Jihan said that he hoped the market would give Bitmain another chance, which made people feel a little humble. He also said that in addition to the industry-leading performance, the S19 series has greatly improved stability and adaptability to harsh environments through a new R&D route and customer-centric approach, and will also undergo new changes in after-sales service.

A mistake by the original leader may ruin everything. Currently, Shenma's M30S is eyeing you and is targeting your stability and quality, even offering a one-year warranty. The performance indicators of S19 seem to be ahead again, even by a lot, but can it win the trust of customers in terms of stability and quality? Bitmain employees and partners are quite confident about this, but in the end it still depends on the sales data during the flood season and the actual experience of miners to prove it.

Former Czech President Havel once said: Live in reality. Wu Jihan also once said that we cannot live in James' lies. Back to the title, why did Wu Jihan want to lift the lid? Maybe he wanted to draw a clear line with James and those lies and live in reality.

Compared with the first time, the second time of starting a business is more difficult. The "mining tyrant" needs to pay for too many old debts. But a Bitmain that lives in reality is still more hopeful.