Bitmain, the demonstrated Beijing-based Bitcoin mining manufacturer has been at the center of the media storm recently relating to its IPO process, BCH hash war, leadership change, mass layoffs, shrinking operation and more. Everybody says Bitmain had a tough time in 2018 due to the crypto crash. Nevertheless, the company has also published a blog post yesterday to outline its achievements in the previous year.

According to the post, Bitmain has made many major developments in 2018, including the 7nm ASIC chip for SHA-256 mining, the AI division “Sophon”, the BCH fork, as well as its expanding operations in the U.S.

In the past year, Bitmain launched a series of new products that may boost the mining efficiency, including a firmware that supports the AsicBoost optimization that available on S9 and BM1387-based models (R4, S9i, S9j, T9, and T9+).

In addition, the next generation 7nm ASIC chip, designed for SHA-256 mining is definitely a great milestone for Bitmain in 2018. The ASIC chip was used in Bitmain’s two latest products launched in late November, the Antminer S15 (28 TH/s, 57J/TH) and T15 (23 TH/s, 67J/TH). Bitmain also indicated that “the chip provides significant improvements in terms of performance, power consumption and delivering outstanding performance”.

Sophon, the AI division named after the alien technology in science fiction The Three Body Problem, also delivered an outstanding result in 2018. They launched the BM1682 AI chip in Q1, and later the BM1880 AI chip for deep learning inference acceleration has also been launched. Bitmain has also launched edge computing boards and USB modules to support the BM1880.

Furthermore, the company also commented on the controversial BCH hard fork:

“It was exciting to see different passions clash for the future and betterment of cryptocurrencies without the purported ‘hash war’ being fought. Having ourselves been through a similar (but much longer!) conflict over the future of Bitcoin just about 18 months back, we understand the BSV community’s decision to split and freely pursue its own dream. Adoption will come through power, flexibility, and sophistication of the ecosystem and we look forward to what 2019 has in store for cryptocurrencies.”

Bitmain also mentioned its expansion in the U.S.: the launch of its new blockchain data center in Rockdale Texas and a Bitcoin mining facility in November in Washington. However, the local media reported that the company has suspended its operations in Rockdale.

In the past several months, Bitmain has undergone a series of mass layoffs and turned down some of its business operations.

The Bitmain team also explains that in preparation for the future, they decided to rationalize their business at the end of 2018.