Bitcoin Miner Maker CEO Held Into Custody Over IP Allegations

The Bitcoin miner maker MicroBT had its CEO Zuoxing Yang held by the local police to assist an investigation over intellectual property allegations as we are reading further in the cryptocurrency news.

The CEO of the Shenzhen-based bitcoin miner maker will assist in an investigation over intellectual property allegations by the firm related to the technology of its rival, the popular Beijing-based crypto mining giant bitmain according to one source close to MicroBT with information on the matter. The news was first reported by Chinese crypto news media outlet BlockBeats.

The source confirmed that Yang was taken away by the local police enforcement at the end of October right after Jihan Wu, the co-founder of the company unexpectedly returned to Bitmain. Wu seized control of Bitcoin last week by simply ousting the company’s other co-founder and chairman at that time Micree Zhan as we read earlier. Zhan later claimed that he was taken out of the company against his will:

 “I didn’t realize until then that those scenes in TV shows, where you get stabbed on your back by those partners you trusted and ‘brothers’ you fought together with, can really happen in real life. […] Bitmain is our child. I will fight for her till the end with legal weapons. I won’t allow those who want to plot against Bitmain to succeed. If someone wants a war, we will give them one.”

Yang was a processor designed director at Bitmain and was responsible for developing the company’s flagship AntMiner S7 and S9 models around 2016. However, he left the company and raised more than $20 million to found MicroBT which produces the WhatsMiner range of mining devices- after discussion with Zhan and Wu for stock options came along.

Bitmain already sued Yang and his company back in 2017 over alleged infringement of a patent that Bitmain was granted for the bitcoin mining-related technology. Back in 2018, the legal team of Yang appealed to a court in china successfully to have the patent revoked after which the case dismissed. The source also explained that at this point it is not so clear how and why the police opened a new investigation over possible intellectual property infringement.

MicroBT has recently been posing a huge increase in competition to top miner makers such as Bitmain and Canaan and even grew its market share in the bitcoin mining industry. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment at the time of writing and Bitmain didn’t want to comment as well.