It is not just the miners and exchanges that are feeling the pinch this crypto winter, Bitmain’s Taiwanese based chip supplier, TSMC, has experienced a large downturn in demand for mining chips in 2018.
With the majority of their income financed by crypto miners, this recent news has prompted many to speculate the future of Bitmain, as TSMC’s chairman Mark Liu and chief executive C.C. Wei told investors at a recent conference call that: “one of the big customers” lack of interest has proven a catalyst for the drop.
They also mentioned that another reason could be the advancements made in technology as a reason for their drop in sales, as “high-performance computing” seen from “other applications” that relate to Bitcoin mining overshadow their work.
Despite a dip in sales, TSMC has still seen profits for the year. The outlook remains good for the lead figures in the company as they believe their future profits lie elsewhere:
“The firm believes that expected demand for their new high-end smartphone chips will make up for the dwindling demand being seen in the ASIC chips market.”
TSMC
But what about Bitmain?
Bitmain has seen a poor end to the year of 2018, as TMSC seems to add weight to claims surrounding their financial issues amid their other monetary as well as legal issues.
The Beijing based company has recently closed some facilities, including in Israel, Texas and Amsterdam and laid-off numerous employees.
Not only that, the company is undertaking a restructuring of the top brass of the company as co founder and CEO, Jihan Wu, appears to be relinquishing his role, whilst the Initial Public Offering (IPO) seems to still be hanging in the balance.
