And on that I agree with you. But we are moving away from that now that Crypto (especially Bitcoin) is becoming mainstream and actually quite relevant in society as a whole.

I do believe that the way forward is to commoditize Bitcoin mining into appliances and other forms of electrical "subsidies" for consumers. Honestly, that is really the most plausible route to decentralized mining that I can  if that is what we're aiming at. But I digress, right now we are in the sweet spot of Bitcoin mining (regardless of what people say about profitability etc). The mining curve vs. Adoption rate (growth) is at its peak right now. After this, price growth will flatten out, and mining profitability will shrink after the next halvening enough so that by the time 7nm chips become mainstream, it probably won't be fun to have a dedicated mining facility anymore.

Note 2018 second half development of ai

quoted from page 2

"System Products for Other Cryptocurrencies
We currently have an ASIC product for a cryptocurrency other than bitcoin under research and development, for which we have completed front-end IC design, and expect mass production of final products in the fourth quarter of 2018. As of the Latest Practicable Date, we had received pre-sale orders of over RMB53.6 million, subject to the successful test of prototypes. We will continue to develop different types of ASICs to address potential market demand for products with high performance and repeated computing power that can be used for other types of cryptocurrencies that require high computing power.

We began to develop ASICs for AI applications in 2016, and plan to mass produce chips for edge computing, which are known as KPUs, in the fourth quarter of 2018. Target applications include voice and image recognition functionalities in smart home, smart city, smart surveillance, smart toy, and several IoT applications. As of the Latest Practicable Date, we had received pre-sale orders from a variety of customers in a provisional amount of approximately RMB38.2 million in the aggregate, with the actual purchase amount to be adjusted with reference to the then market price of the products after the prototypes have been successfully tested."



quoted from page 7

 "Our future revenue growth, if any, will depend largely on our ability to expand beyond bitcoin mining application and penetrate into new application markets, particularly those ASIC application markets with demand for high performance and computing power or for other types of cryptocurrencies or AI products, all of which are still under development. Each of these markets presents distinct and substantial risks; and
• Our customers and suppliers are based globally, and an increasing portion of our revenues have been derived from sales to customers outside the PRC. As such, changes in government policies, taxes, general economic and fiscal conditions, as well as political, diplomatic or social events expose us to financial and business risks. In particular, changes in policies and laws regarding holding, using or mining of bitcoins could result in an adverse effect on our business operations and our results of operations. Moreover, if any domestic or international jurisdiction where we operate or sell our products prohibits or restricts bitcoin mining activities, we may experience material loss of revenue"


Looks like they may abandon or shift from mining gear