Seven months ago, during the first week of May, the digital currency entrepreneur Jihan Wu said at a conference that he expects the crypto industry to surpass the internet and the following August, Wu’s firm Matrixport raised $100 million and joined the crypto industry’s growing list of unicorns. This week an interview with Wu was published and the billionaire said that he believes crypto and blockchain space will grow to tens of trillions of dollars in value.
Jihan Wu: “Crypto and blockchain will reach tens of billions of dollars” in the future
The former Bitmain CEO is no stranger to the cryptocurrency world, as the pioneer has been involved in the industry for over a decade. Jihan Wu co-founded the privately held Bitmain Technologies Ltd., with Micree Zhan in 2013.
In recent times, he leads the digital currency financial services company Matrixport, a startup that raised $100 million in August. Wu is a big believer in crypto and blockchain and in May, Wu spoke at the Second 421 Wet Season Festival and Mining Ecology Conference and said:
In the long run, the blockchain industry is bullish and is the biggest opportunity. Innovations in this industry may even overtake the Internet itself.
The Matrixport and Bitdeer Technologies founder is still bullish about blockchain and crypto and this week he was interviewed by Forbes Asia in a story published by author Robert Olsen. Wu’s optimism is shown throughout the interview and remarked that his firm believes the industry will swell to tens of trillions in the future.
“We believed that crypto and blockchain together would grow rapidly in the future up to tens of billions of dollars,” Wu explained in the interview. “And many of these new users will stay in the crypto market forever, so they will need advanced and sophisticated products to manage the wealth they accumulate in crypto assets.”
Furthermore, Wu highlighted his optimism more so when he said:
Even if 95% of today’s coins lose all their value and disappear, the remaining 5% will grow massively.
Former Bitmain Co-Founder Talks Briefly About Fall Out With Micree Zhan, Bitmain Continues Path To Crypto
In the interview with Forbes, Asia Wu spoke briefly about her falling out with Bitmain co-founder Micree Zhan. Wu made a deal with Zhan, walked away from Bitmain, and launched Matrixport and Bitdeer. According to Olsen, this was the first time Wu could speak out on the matter, but a nondisclosure agreement prevents the digital currency entrepreneur from speaking out on specific issues.
“That was a tough period for our business and for me. And of course, the pressures of running a complex manufacturing business built up and eventually led to a falling out between us two cofounders,” Wu explained in the Forbes Asia interview.
While Bitdeer recently announced its intention to be listed on Nasdaq and the funding recently received by Matrixport, Bitmain continues to move forward in the industry. At the World Digital Mining Summit in Dubai, Bitmain unveiled the company’s most powerful bitcoin mining device to date. According to the announcement, the Antminer S19 XP will hash at speeds of up to 140 terahash per second (TH / s). Bitmain’s mining pool, Antpool is also the third largest bitcoin miner today in terms of hashrate, below Foundry USA.
