On January 16, 2026, Canaan Technology issued an announcement stating that it received a notification from the Nasdaq trading platform on January 14. The notification indicated that Canaan Technology was being warned because its stock price had closed below $1 for the past 30 trading days. According to Nasdaq listing rules, if Canaan Technology cannot bring its stock price back to $1 or above within 180 days (before July 13, 2026), it may face delisting.
Canaan Technology stated that, if necessary, the company will implement a reverse stock split to ensure the share price meets the requirements. A reverse stock split refers to the practice of reducing the total number of shares and increasing the share price by consolidating existing outstanding shares. The author contacted Canaan Technology regarding the warning received, but had not received a response as of press time.
This is the second time Canaan Technology has received a delisting warning in nearly a year. The first time was in May 2025, after which the stock price rose above $1 due to the increase in Bitcoin prices, thus alleviating the crisis. However, the overall sluggishness of the cryptocurrency market in recent months has caused Canaan Technology's stock price to fall by nearly 30% in the past 30 trading days.
On December 13, 2025, Bitcoin treasury company Kindly MD received a warning for the same reason, while BNB treasury company Windtree Therapeutics was delisted in August 2025. Unlike cryptocurrency treasury companies, the current situation of Canaan Technology, one of the leading players in the Bitcoin mining machine manufacturing industry, is somewhat lamentable.
Canaan Creative went public on Nasdaq in November 2019, becoming the world's first pure blockchain company to complete an IPO. After its listing, Canaan's stock price remained below its IPO price for over a year. However, with the arrival of the cryptocurrency bull market, its stock price began to recover steadily from the end of 2020, reaching an all-time high of nearly $40 in March 2021, with a market capitalization exceeding $5 billion.
The good times didn't last. With the domestic ban on mining and the bear market that lasted throughout 2022, Canaan Technology's stock price continued to fall and returned to pre-bull market levels. In this cycle, although the price of Bitcoin hit new highs and even reached nearly twice the highest price in 2021, the stock price fell instead of rising, and in April 2024 it fell below $1 for the first time.
Besides objective market reasons, the poor performance in the capital market was also triggered by the industry and Canaan Technology itself.
In the Bitcoin mining machine market, Bitmain is the undisputed leader, while Canaan Technology consistently held second place until 2021. However, after 2021, MicroBT rapidly rose to prominence due to its higher power efficiency, pushing Canaan to third place. According to a report released by Intel Market Research in December 2025, MicroBT's market share is projected to be 15% to 20%, while Canaan's is expected to be 10% to 15%.
Canaan Technology's annual reports from 2021 to 2024 show a continuous decline in net profit over four years, from a net profit of over $300 million in 2021 to a loss of nearly $250 million in 2024. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, the bear market in 2022 led to continuous impairment provisions for Canaan's accumulated inventory, impacting profits; secondly, fierce competition kept R&D expenses and operating expenditures high, while market share failed to increase effectively.
Under multiple blows, the sharp decline in demand became the final straw. According to MSX researcher Frank, the over-expectation of Bitcoin mining narratives and the visible intensification of competition have led many Bitcoin mining companies to transform into AI computing power infrastructure. Although "selling shovels" has always been a good business model, in the current capital market, the Bitcoin story is clearly not as certain as AI, and funds have naturally voted with their feet, shifting to AI-related companies.
In fact, Canaan Technology began developing AI chips nearly 10 years ago. In 2018, it launched its first commercial edge AI chip based on the RISC-V architecture, the Kendryte K210. This chip is mainly used for edge computing and supports AI vision and audio processing. In the following six years, Canaan released three more chips, all of which made significant innovations based on their predecessors.
While Canaan Technology's chips boasted technological highlights and it "got an early start," compared to giants like Nvidia and Intel, Canaan lacked 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 company's total. In June 2025, Canaan Technology announced the cessation of its non-core AI semiconductor business and the closure of its AI chip division. Its 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 the venture to focus on cryptocurrency mining machines and the North American market.
Canaan Technology is a microcosm of the "physical business" within the Web3 industry. Ebang International, another publicly listed Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer, has seen its stock price plummet from a peak of nearly $450 in 2020 to around $3, a drop of over 99%. Hardware manufacturers typically have very mature and fixed valuation models; if the industry they operate in lacks clear growth prospects, they can easily fall into a vicious cycle.
On the bright side, at the end of 2025, Canaan Technology first signed a massive 4.5 MV order in October, and then completed a $72 million financing round in November. Clearly, some in the market still believe that the former "Pumpkin Zhang" can overcome his difficulties, but to escape his predicament, Canaan Technology may need a new narrative.
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