Ruixiang was the first to launch the face-swiping payment device "Eagle", which really hit Ahri and caught Penguin off guard.
The research and development of these two products has almost been completed, but they have not yet been officially launched.
Stimulated by Ruixiang, the two giants also coincidentally adjusted the launch time of their products.
In the past year, the market share of mobile payment has maintained a market pattern of 40% for Alipay, 30% for WeChat Pay, and 20% for Mobo Pay.
Three companies share more than 90% of the domestic mobile payment market, while the remaining payment companies only have a few points of market share combined.
Regarding this situation, Ruixiang and the other two giants have maintained a tacit understanding and have not rashly launched a subsidy war. They still focus on making money.
Last year, Wanglian was established, an online payment unified clearing platform led by the central bank.
In the past, third-party payment institutions were directly connected to banks, and "customer reserves" were also stored in various banks, and interest was regarded as hidden income by third-party payment institutions.
Now there is an additional network link in the middle, and the central bank requires that payment institutions should deposit customer reserve funds in a certain proportion of designated institutions' special deposit accounts, and no interest will be paid on the funds in this account for the time being.
Last year, 20% of the reserve fund was required to be paid for the first time. This year, it was required to gradually increase the deposit ratio on a monthly basis. By January 2019, 100% centralized deposit will be achieved.
Now it's better. After working hard to subsidize the market for many years, I thought it was ready to be harvested, but my dream was shattered.
As a result, Paybay and WeChat Pay began to charge a 0.1% handling fee, both for cash withdrawals and credit card payments.
Ruixiang wanted to keep it going for a while to attract some users.
After persisting for two months, I found that users have become accustomed to using their usual payment methods.
So I stopped insisting and started charging a 0.1% handling fee.
The payment market is in this situation now. It has been in a stalemate for a long time, and no one can do anything about it.
If there is no technological or model subversion, this pattern should remain the same for a long time.
"Face payment" looks a bit like it is going to subvert the existing payment pattern, so Erma is naturally very wary.
Regardless of whether we can succeed or not, at least we can’t fall behind Rui Xiang.
Just when Ruixiang began to deploy machines across the country through service providers of all sizes, the programmers from the two giant companies complained endlessly. Normally, 996 would be fine, but now 007 is here.
There are often some store owners on Douyin who make short videos showing off their facial recognition payment equipment.
While promoting the eagle, it also increases the anxiety of Ahri and the penguin.
In fact, Zhang Yida does not have high expectations for facial recognition payment. It is impossible for this to become a nuclear bomb like "WeChat Red Envelope" and wipe out Ali's ten years of hard work in one week.
Ruixiang ran first this time and could not capture much market share from the other two giants.
The main issues are “usage habits” and “penetration rate”.
…
Bitmain's Series B financing was completed very quickly, with a pre-investment valuation of US$14 billion quickly finalizing a round of US$560 million in financing, and a post-investment valuation of US$14.56 billion.
The investment institutions that learned this news all sighed with regret, getting on the bus a step too late.
This is also a star startup company in the past two years, with a valuation of only US$1 billion a year ago.
One year later, the valuation increased nearly 15 times.
The reason for such earth-shaking changes is that the world's largest mining machine manufacturer has caught up with last year's boom in the currency market.
Bitmain is equivalent to a businessman selling water on the gold rush road. No matter how the currency circle fluctuates, the mining machines sold will make money.
Revenue in 2017 was US$2.5 billion and net profit was US$1.25 billion; revenue in the first quarter of 2018 was US$1.87 billion and net profit was US$1.14 billion.
Even Zhang Yida was ashamed after reading this financial report. It was simply a money printing machine.
After completing this round of financing, Bitmain will submit a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is expected to be officially listed by the end of this year or early next year.
Outsiders predict that the IPO will raise US$18 billion and the company's market value will be US$40-50 billion.
This is also the reason why many investment institutions regret. Why do they invest in such a good company too late?
Fortunately, Zhang Yida and GF Hero Post expressed their intention to transfer 13.55% of the shares held by Bitmain.
The first reaction from the outside world was that Ruixiang’s capital chain was broken.
Otherwise, how can you explain that all the shares of such an awesome company have been transferred?
Moreover, Bitmain will be listed soon, why not wait one more quarter?
Although there are a lot of discussions, the outside world has given various interpretations.
But Zhang Yida did not waver at all and had to transfer the shares.
From the bottom of my heart, the reason why I invested US$5 million in Bitmain is for today.
This is a financial investment, and the business synergy between Ruixiang and Bitmain is not strong.
In addition, the blockchain is also ebbing. If you don’t transfer it, what will you do if you lose it?
Finally, it’s because of the two founders. In Zhang Yida’s previous life, he heard a lot of news about their disagreements.
Black Shirt Capital, the company behind Shen Beipeng, invested in Bitmain twice in a row. It was a little puzzled by Zhang Yida's behavior and made a special inquiry call.
"Yida, the outside world doesn't know Ruixiang's financial situation, but I do.
You have so much money in your account and you still want to acquire Te Continental shares? You can’t wait for several months?”
Zhang Yida laughed "haha" and said, "The main reason is that it is affected by the environment this year. I have food in my hand and I don't feel panic."
Shen Beipeng advised: "Bitmain currently holds 74.5% of the global mining machine market share. Last year, its total revenue from ASIC chips accounted for 7% of the market share in the ASIC design industry, second only to Huawei HiSilicon in China.
In addition, this month also announced the launch of a new self-developed 7nm chip, with a single chip integrating up to 1 billion transistors..."
"I admit that this company has certain technical content, but in its current state, I am not optimistic that they can successfully go public."
Zhang Yida was too lazy to explain too much and directly stated that he was not optimistic about Bitmain's successful listing.
In fact, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange also rejected Bitmain's listing application on the grounds of "single income". It relies too much on mining machine revenue. The so-called "AI chip" revenue is less than 10%.
The total revenue in the first half of this year was 2.845 billion US dollars, which can almost challenge the chip giant Nvidia, and its glory is unlimited.
But once the bear market comes and currency prices plummet, mining machines can only be treated as scrap copper and scrap metal, and the mainland cannot survive alone.
Although Zhang Yida's words are very direct, they still seem a bit too arbitrary at the moment.
But Shen Beipeng knows how sensitive his sense of smell is. Several mutual financial companies all cashed out at high prices, which can be called a textbook method.
"Then wouldn't it be wrong for us? Two months ago, we followed the round with a post-investment price of US$14 billion?"
Zhang Yida smiled and said, "It doesn't matter. Didn't Blackshirt Capital also invest US$40 million in the first phase of the fund?
The money we make is enough to hedge our risks."
Now that Zhang Yida has made his decision, Shen Beipeng no longer tries to persuade him.
Wu Jihan, the founder of Bitmain, also called to confirm the authenticity of the news that Zhang Yida had transferred his shares.
Zhang Yida didn't mess around and told the other party directly that he really wanted to transfer the shares.
If an investment institution wants to exit and sell old shares, as long as it is not sold to a competitor, then there is no big problem.
Wu Jihan did not persuade him, but his attitude became much colder. He urged Zhang Yida to act quickly so that they could revise the prospectus in time and not affect the listing plan.
Zhang Yida was not surprised. After all, he suddenly transferred the shares before the company went public, and he almost used a loudspeaker to shout: I am not optimistic about your listing. If you go public, it will be a big deal.
It has to be said that with Zhang Yida’s current popularity and influence, the transfer of Bitmain’s shares is a very big negative for the company.
I'm afraid that if it is successfully listed, the amount of funds raised and the market value will be greatly reduced.
After Wu Jihan, many investment institutions that invested in Bitmain called.
The purpose was just one, to persuade Zhang Yida not to sell his shares.
Zhang Yida could only politely decline the "goodwill". He had already decided to sell the shares.
The investment institutions were naturally very angry and felt that Zhang Yida was being disrespectful, but there was nothing they could do to him.
Ruixiang holds 13.55% of Bitmain’s shares. Based on the latter’s valuation of US$14.56 billion, this stake is worth US$1.97288 billion.
The amount was not small, and it took six investment institutions to purchase it.
These unlucky guys didn't catch up with Bitmain's last round of fundraising. When they heard that Zhang Yida had old shares for sale, they rushed over.
The negotiation was not very smooth, mainly because Zhang Yida suddenly transferred his equity before the listing, which is very suspicious.
As a result, the six major investment institutions began to bargain with Zhang Yida, demanding a 20% or 30% discount.
Zhang Yida directly "sent off the guests" and then calmed the group.
In the end, the stock price was transferred at par, without discount or premium.
An investment of US$5 million turned into US$1.97288 billion in three and a half years, an increase of 395 times!
Shortly after completing the transfer of Bitmain’s stock price, Ruixiang started a big sale.
A series of unicorns such as Ucommune, a shared office company, Singularity Auto, a new car-making force, Huitongda, a rural e-commerce company, and Goudong Daojia-Dada, one of the top three instant delivery companies in the city, have all been put on the shelves.
These companies have not been listed on the market, have not achieved revenue balance, and rely heavily on external financing.
Zhang Yida couldn't stand it anymore and decided to switch to RMB or US dollars to feel more at ease.
In addition, Ali and Goudong are also crowding out Ruixiang. For example, Huitongda was invested 4.5 billion yuan by Ali in the first half of this year. It focuses on the sinking market and has irreconcilable conflicts with Pinduoduo.
After Goudong Daojia and Dada merged, they never forcibly drove away Ruixiang.
Until the tens of billions of subsidies came out some time ago, weak Xi Ge couldn't stand Zhang Yida anymore.
Zhang Yida discussed with Lu Qi and Lin Zhenyang for a whole day, and finally figured out the relationship around the future business development direction and the capital behind the invested companies.
Two long lists were made, one to increase equity holdings or mergers and acquisitions, and the other to sell all.
Ruixiang's "big move" shocked the Internet circle again. People familiar with the matter said: This is a new round of reshuffle and a re-division of the Internet sector.
There are also some investment institutions gearing up to grab some bargains at the "Unicorn Special" opened by Ruixiang.