Once known as the "No. 1 in the cryptocurrency world," he mysteriously disappeared. Nearly 10 years later, his address became active again, transferring all of his bitcoins worth $18.12 million.
FriedCat, a legendary figure known as the "first person" in the cryptocurrency circle, his story is still full of mysteries.
FriedCat's real name is Jiang Xinyu, born in Shaoyang, Hunan in 1986. He has excellent academic performance since childhood. At the age of 15, he was admitted to the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China with the 11th place in the country, and obtained a master's degree at the age of 23. In 2011, he went to Yale University for a visiting scholar, but chose to drop out of school while pursuing a doctorate. All this was because he encountered Bitcoin - this liberal thought proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto deeply attracted FriedCat. He began to study the technical white paper of Bitcoin day and night, and gradually became fascinated by the world of mining.
In 2012, Friedcat posted a post on Bitcointalk, the official forum of Bitcoin, under the name of "friedcat", claiming that he could manufacture ASIC mining machines, but he lacked sufficient start-up capital. At that time, there were no mining machines in China, and the market demand for mining machines was extremely urgent. Friedcat quickly raised one million RMB in funds and officially embarked on the journey of mining machine manufacturing. In July of the same year, he and his partner Fan Dawei founded the company "Bitquan" in Shenzhen and successfully IPOed on the exchange. Friedcat himself holds 59% of the company's shares. Among the well-known investors, Wu Jihan, who later became a mining tyrant, and the online writer "Xiao Qiang" also invested more than a thousand bitcoins. With their trust in the Friedcat team, these investors eventually received hundreds of times the return.
In early 2013, Wang Song and Zhuang Zhong (later the head of BTC.com mining pool) joined the BBK team. They spent half a year together in Maple Leaf Garden Apartment in Shenzhen. The team had a clear division of labor. Zhuang Zhong was responsible for writing code, Wang Song was responsible for procurement and supply chain, BBK kept in touch with investors, and Fan Dawei was responsible for product design. It was during this time that the BBK team's first Bitcoin mining machine was born, making him the second mining machine manufacturer in the world. On February 18, BBK's mining machine successfully mined a block and obtained 50 bitcoins. The mining farm was also built immediately, and the computing power at that time once accounted for 42% of the entire network.
That year, there were only a handful of competitors in the mining machine market: Butterfly Labs in the United States promised to produce ASIC mining machines, but it has been slow to ship; Pumpkin Zhang's Avalon mining machine is highly efficient but has a low output. Baked Cat quickly took the leading position in the market with its technological advantages. 2013 is known as the first year of Bitcoin, and the entire currency circle is surging wildly. Baked Cat's company stock price once climbed to 5 Bitcoins per share, and the dividend was as high as 0.036222 Bitcoins. Combined with the increase in the price of Bitcoin itself, the shareholders of the Baked Cat team received more than 500 times the value-added return, and Baked Cat itself earned hundreds of millions of RMB.
However, the good times did not last long. When developing the second-generation mining machine, FC encountered a technical bottleneck and failed to launch a new mining machine chip in time. At the same time, new competitors emerged. Wu Jihan left FC and founded Antminer. In October 2013, FC's computing power fell below 4% of the total computing power of the Bitcoin network, and its position as a "mining tyrant" was in jeopardy.
Worse still, in January 2014, the third-generation chips of the company exploded, resulting in more than 14,000 mining chips being unsalable. The price of the new mining machines was too low to make up for the losses, and the company's situation became increasingly difficult. In September, through an intermediary, Roasted Cat cooperated with a Fujian businessman Lin QX (pseudonym) to build a 2,000-square-meter large mining farm in Huai'an, where 7,000 to 8,000 mining machines were installed. However, the two parties eventually parted ways due to conflicts of interest, and Roasted Cat had to pay the other party 80 million yuan in liquidated damages.
In October 2014, FriedCat got married. But at the end of the same year, FriedCat suddenly disappeared. His family reported the case to the police on January 25, 2015, but there was still no news for several years. His last login time on Bitcointalk was 4:03 pm on January 25, 2015.
The disappearance of FriedCat caused a huge stir, and investors in the cryptocurrency circle fell into panic and confusion. On February 28, 2015, BitQuan Company stopped paying dividends. On March 11, under pressure from many parties, Fan Dawei issued an announcement on behalf of the company that FriedCat was missing, claiming that the company would continue to operate. However, the rights defenders soon discovered that BitQuan's office had long been empty.
Despite this, FriedCat's online traces are still vague. On the 12th day after FriedCat was officially declared missing, his social media account shared a documentary (If the United States does not exist). On March 3, 2015, FriedCat's three Bitcoin wallets suddenly transferred out 19,000 Bitcoins. On July 29 and August 4, 2017, his two wallets again transferred out a total of 17,597 Bitcoins, but he never showed up.
Just today, the wallet address of FriedCat, which had been silent for four years, became active again, transferring 206.34 bitcoins worth $18.12 million to another address. This amount of bitcoins has completely cleared the address.
FriedCat, where did he go? Will he come back? This mystery has not yet been solved, becoming an unfinished legend in the cryptocurrency circle.
