From $5 Billion Market Cap to the Brink of Delisting: Canaan, the First Blockchain Stock, Unable to Sell Its 'Shovels'?

Original Title: "Global Blockchain's First Stock Receives Delisting Warning, 'Selling Shovels' Not That Appealing Anymore"

Original Author: Eric, Foresight News

On January 16, 2026, Canaan Technology announced that it had received a notification from the Nasdaq trading platform on January 14. The notification indicated that Canaan Technology had been warned because its stock price had closed below $1 for the past 30 trading days. According to Nasdaq listing rules, if Canaan Technology fails to bring its stock price back to $1 or above within 180 days (by July 13, 2026), it may face delisting.

Canaan Technology stated that, if necessary, the company would conduct a reverse stock split to meet the requirements. A reverse stock split involves reducing the total number of shares by merging existing outstanding shares to raise the price per share. The author reached out to Canaan Technology regarding the warning but had not received a response at the time of writing.

This is the second delisting warning Canaan Technology has received in nearly a year, with the previous one being in May 2025. Subsequently, due to the surge in Bitcoin prices, the stock price rose above $1, alleviating the crisis. However, the overall downturn in the cryptocurrency market in recent months has caused Canaan Technology's stock price to drop by nearly 30% over the past 30 trading days.

On December 13, 2025, Bitcoin Treasury company Kindly MD received a similar warning for the same reason, while BNB Treasury company Windtree Therapeutics was delisted in August 2025. Unlike cryptocurrency treasury companies, Canaan Technology, as one of the leading players in the Bitcoin mining machine manufacturing field, is currently in a somewhat lamentable state.

Canaan Technology went public on the Nasdaq in November 2019, becoming the world's first pure blockchain concept company to complete an IPO. After going public, Canaan Technology's stock price remained below the IPO price for over a year, but with the arrival of the cryptocurrency bull market, its stock price began to rise continuously from the end of 2020 and reached a historical high of nearly $40 in March 2021, with a market value exceeding $5 billion.

However, the good times did not last. With the domestic mining ban and a bear market throughout 2022, Canaan Technology's stock price continued to fall back to pre-bull market levels. In this cycle, although Bitcoin's price hit new highs and even doubled at one point from the highest price in 2021, the stock price did not rise accordingly. It first dropped below $1 in April 2024.

In addition to objective market reasons, both the industry and Canaan Inc. itself were also triggers for its poor performance in the capital market.

In the Bitcoin mining machine market, Bitmain has been the absolute leader, with Canaan occupying the second position until 2021. However, after 2021, MicroBT quickly rose to prominence with a higher power efficiency ratio, pushing Canaan to third place. According to a report released by Intel Market Research in December 2025, MicroBT's market share is between 15% and 20%, while Canaan is between 10% and 15%.

Canaan Inc.'s annual reports from 2021 to 2024 show a continuous decline in net profit over the four years, from earning over $300 million in 2021 to a loss of nearly $250 million in 2024. The reasons behind this decline include, on the one hand, the bear market in 2022 led to continuous inventory write-downs that affected profits, and on the other hand, fierce competition kept R&D expenses and operating costs high without a significant increase in market share.

Under multiple pressures, a sharp drop in demand became the final straw that broke the camel's back. According to MSX researcher Frank's analysis, the oversold expectations of the Bitcoin mining narrative in 2022, coupled with visible intensified competition, led many Bitcoin mining companies to transition to AI computing power infrastructure. Although "selling shovels" has always been a good business model, in the current capital market, the Bitcoin story clearly lacks the certainty of AI, and funds naturally voted with their feet, shifting to AI-related enterprises.

In fact, Canaan Inc. started developing AI chips nearly a decade ago. In 2018, it launched its first commercial edge AI chip Kendryte K210 based on the RISC-V architecture, mainly used for edge computing, supporting AI vision and audio processing. Over the following 6 years, Canaan released a total of 3 chips, all of which underwent significant innovations based on the previous generation.

Although the chips launched by Canaan Inc. have technological highlights and made an early start, compared to giants like NVIDIA and Intel, Canaan lacks ecosystem support and large-scale demand. In 2024, its AI-related business revenue was only about $900,000, while operating expenses accounted for 15% of the entire company. In June 2025, Canaan Inc. announced the cessation of non-core AI semiconductor business, the closure of the AI chip division. In its related announcement, the company stated that it had been exploring the sale of the AI business since March 2022 but did not find a buyer, ultimately deciding to abandon it to focus on cryptocurrency mining machines and the North American market.

Jiangzhi Technology is a microcosm of the Web3 industry's "real-world business." As a listed company that is also a Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer, Ebang International's stock price has plummeted from a peak of nearly $450 in 2020 to around $3, a drop of over 99%. For hardware manufacturers, they themselves have a very mature and fixed valuation model. If the industry they are in does not have a clear growth prospect, it is easy to fall into a vicious cycle.

The good news is that by the end of 2025, Jiangzhi Technology had signed a mega order of 4.5 MV ahead of schedule in October and completed a $72 million financing round in November. Obviously, there are still people in the market who believe that the former "Pumpkin Zhang" can turn the tide, but to break free from the predicament, Jiangzhi Technology may need a new narrative.

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