According to Forbes, George Kikvadze’s new memoir “And Then You Win” reveals how Bitfury grew from a small Eastern European mining operation to powering 40% of the bitcoin network at its peak, employing over 1,000 people across 16 countries. The company’s early 55 nanometer ASIC chips mined approximately 400,000 bitcoins while operating data centers across Canada, Iceland and Eurasia. The book details dramatic moments including a 2016 crisis where Bitfury’s groundbreaking 16nm chips mysteriously failed during mass production at TSMC, nearly destroying the company during a nine-month diagnostic ordeal that Kikvadze suspects was industrial sabotage by Asian competitors. Bitfury’s journey included surviving the 2018-19 bear market that forced 95% staff layoffs and strategic pivots that ultimately led to spinning off major industry players like Hut 8 and Cipher Mining. This insider account provides crucial perspective on bitcoin’s formative years that risk being lost to history.
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Table of Contents
The Unlikely Chip Designers Who Challenged Asia
What makes Bitfury’s story remarkable isn’t just their success, but their complete lack of formal qualifications for the semiconductor industry they entered. Most people don’t realize that designing integrated circuits typically requires decades of specialized education and access to billion-dollar fabrication facilities. That Bitfury’s team of Ukrainian, Finnish, and Latvian engineers could compete with established giants like Bitmain and Canaan using textbooks and online resources represents one of the most extraordinary cases of disruptive innovation in modern technology. This wasn’t just building better mining rigs – it was challenging the entire global semiconductor supply chain from a position of apparent weakness.
The Strategic Genius of Full-Stack Bitcoin
Valery Vavilov’s vision of Bitfury as a “full stack bitcoin company” proved prescient in ways that continue to shape the industry today. While most early players focused exclusively on mining profitability, Bitfury understood that true value creation came from building infrastructure that would outlast any single market cycle. Their development of BlockBox modular mining facilities and acquisition of immersion cooling technology through Allied Control (later LiquidStack) demonstrated remarkable foresight. This infrastructure-first approach created multiple revenue streams that helped them survive bear markets that wiped out countless mining-only operations.
The Geopolitical Realities of Hardware Manufacturing
Kikvadze’s suspicions about industrial espionage at TSMC highlight a critical but underdiscussed aspect of the bitcoin industry: the geopolitical vulnerabilities in hardware manufacturing. With Taiwan controlling approximately 60% of the global semiconductor foundry market, companies dependent on advanced chips face not just technical challenges but complex international relationships. The need for “hired gun ex-diplomats” to resolve production issues reveals how bitcoin infrastructure exists at the intersection of technology, finance, and international relations – a reality that continues to impact the industry as nations increasingly view bitcoin mining as a matter of national security and economic strategy.
The Brutal Economics of Bitcoin’s Boom-Bust Cycles
Bitfury’s experience with the 2018-19 and 2022-23 bear markets provides crucial lessons about capital management in an industry known for extreme volatility. The company’s decision to wind down chip manufacturing after the FTX collapse demonstrates the difficult choices infrastructure companies must make when market conditions shift. What’s often misunderstood about bitcoin’s cyclical nature is that each bear market fundamentally reshapes the industry’s competitive landscape, favoring companies with diversified revenue streams and conservative balance sheets. Bitfury’s ability to pivot from chip manufacturing to high-performance compute and blockchain services shows the strategic flexibility required for long-term survival.
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Why Bitcoin’s History Matters for Its Future
Kikvadze’s memoir arrives at a critical juncture for bitcoin historical preservation. As the industry matures and early pioneers exit, there’s genuine risk that the ideological foundations and hard-won lessons from bitcoin’s first decade could be lost. The current generation of bitcoin participants often lacks context about the Block Size wars, early regulatory battles, and the technological breakthroughs that made today’s ecosystem possible. Works like “And Then You Win” serve not just as entertainment but as vital educational resources for understanding how we arrived at the current bitcoin landscape – knowledge that’s essential for navigating future challenges and opportunities.
