From "Global First Stock" to Delisting Warning: How Canaan Inc. Fell into a Value Dilemma

Author: Eric, Foresight News

Original Title: The world’s top blockchain stock receives delisting warning again, “selling shovels” is no longer attractive

On January 16, 2026, Canaan Inc. announced that it received a notification from NASDAQ on January 14. The notice states that Canaan Inc. was warned because its stock price closed below $1 for the past 30 trading days. According to NASDAQ listing rules, if Canaan Inc. cannot bring its stock price back to $1 or above within 180 days (by July 13, 2026), it may face delisting.

Canaan Inc. stated that if necessary, the company will implement a reverse stock split to meet the requirement. A reverse stock split involves consolidating existing shares to reduce the total number of shares and increase the share price. The author contacted Canaan Inc. regarding the warning, but as of press time, there has been no response.

This is the second time Canaan Inc. has received a delisting warning within a year, the last being in May 2025. Afterward, due to the rise in Bitcoin prices, the stock price surged above $1, alleviating the crisis. However, in recent months, the overall cryptocurrency market has been sluggish, causing Canaan Inc.'s stock to fall nearly 30% over the past 30 trading days.

On December 13, 2025, Bitcoin treasury company Kindly MD also received a warning for the same reason, while BNB treasury company Windtree Therapeutics was delisted in August 2025. Unlike cryptocurrency treasury companies, Canaan Inc., as a leading player in Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturing, finds its current situation somewhat lamentable.

Canaan Inc. went public on NASDAQ in November 2019, becoming the world’s first pure blockchain concept company to complete an IPO. After listing, Canaan Inc.'s stock price remained below the IPO price for over a year. However, with the crypto bull market, its stock price began to recover from late 2020, reaching a historical high of nearly $40 in March 2021, with a market value exceeding $5 billion.

The good times did not last long. Following the domestic mining ban and the bear market throughout 2022, Canaan Inc.'s stock continued to decline, returning to pre-bull market levels. During this cycle, although Bitcoin’s price hit new highs and even doubled the 2021 peak at times, the stock price declined instead of rising, and in April 2024, it first fell below $1.

Apart from objective market reasons, industry factors and Canaan Inc. itself also contributed to its poor performance.

In the Bitcoin mining hardware market, Bitmain is the absolute leader. Before 2021, Canaan Inc. was consistently in second place, but after 2021, MicroBT rapidly rose due to higher power efficiency, pushing Canaan to third place. According to a December 2025 report by Intel Market Research, MicroBT’s market share is estimated at 15% to 20%, while Canaan’s is 10% to 15%.

Canaan Inc.'s annual reports from 2021 to 2024 show its net profit declining continuously over four years, from over $300 million profit in 2021 to a loss of nearly $250 million in 2024. The reasons include, on one hand, the 2022 bear market leading to continued inventory impairments affecting profits; on the other hand, fierce competition kept R&D and operating expenses high, with no effective increase in market share.

Under multiple blows, the sharp decline in demand became the final straw. According to MSX researcher Frank, overhyped expectations for Bitcoin mining narratives and visible intensification of competition led many Bitcoin mining companies to pivot to AI computing infrastructure. Although “selling shovels” has always been a good business model, in the current capital market, Bitcoin’s story is clearly less certain than AI, and funds are naturally voting with their feet, shifting toward AI-related companies.

In fact, Canaan Inc. began developing AI chips nearly 10 years ago. In 2018, it launched its first commercial edge AI chip based on the RISC-V architecture, Kendryte K210, mainly used for edge computing, supporting AI vision and audio processing. Over the following six years, Canaan released three more chips, each with significant innovations over the previous generation.

Although Canaan’s chips have technical highlights and “got an early start,” compared to giants like NVIDIA and Intel, Canaan lacks ecosystem support and large-scale demand. In 2024, its AI-related revenue was only about $900,000, while operating expenses accounted for 15% of the entire company. In June 2025, Canaan announced the cessation of its non-core AI semiconductor business and shut down its AI chip division. The related announcement stated that the company had been exploring the sale of its AI business since March 2022 but had not found a buyer, ultimately deciding to abandon it to focus on crypto mining hardware and the North American market.

Canaan Inc. is a microcosm of the “physical business” in the Web3 industry. Another listed Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer, Yibang International, has seen its stock price plummet from nearly $450 at its 2020 peak to around $3, a decline of over 99%. For hardware manufacturers, there are well-established valuation models. If the industry lacks clear growth prospects, it can easily fall into a vicious cycle.

On the positive side, by the end of 2025, Canaan Inc. signed a massive order of 4.5 MV in October and completed a $72 million financing in November. Clearly, some in the market still believe that the former “Pumpkin Zhang” can turn things around, but to escape the predicament, Canaan Inc. may need a new story.