From Blockchain's First Stock to the Brink of Delisting: Canaan Technology in a "Desperate Struggle"

Written by: Ma He, Foresight News

On July 15, Canaan Technology announced that it had received a written notice from Nasdaq, granting an additional 180-day grace period, extending the deadline to January 11, 2027. Previously, its ADS price had fallen below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days, triggering a compliance alert for Nasdaq's minimum bid requirement.

Market reaction was muted. By the close, Canaan Technology's stock was priced at $0.29, with a total market capitalization of approximately $217 million, down more than 90% from its peak market value at the time of its IPO in November 2019. This company, once hailed as the "world's first blockchain stock," now stands on the edge of delisting.

180 Days Until Delisting

The tug-of-war between Canaan Technology and Nasdaq's compliance department began in May 2025. At that time, the company received its first delisting warning due to its stock price remaining below $1. It temporarily resolved the crisis with a rebound in Bitcoin prices. However, the good times did not last long. On January 14, 2026, Nasdaq issued another notice: Canaan Technology's ADS closing price had been below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days, and the company must achieve compliance by July 13, meaning the closing price must reach or exceed $1 for 10 consecutive trading days.

On July 13, the initial grace period expired. Canaan Technology failed to meet the requirements. On July 1, the company urgently moved its listing from the Nasdaq Global Market to the relatively lower-threshold Nasdaq Capital Market and submitted an application for an additional 180 days.

On July 15, the application was approved, setting a new deadline of January 11, 2027.

According to Nasdaq rules, if compliance is not restored by then, Canaan Technology may face the fate of being delisted. The company has indicated that it will consider implementing a reverse stock split to boost its stock price if necessary, but this is often viewed by the market as a sign of weakness.

Q1 2026 Financial Report: Total Revenue Down 24.3%, Net Loss of $88.7 Million

Canaan Technology's sluggish stock price is not without reason. Its latest financial report shows that the company is in a severe financial bleeding state.

On May 19, 2026, Canaan Technology released its unaudited Q1 financial report: total revenue was $62.7 million, a year-on-year decrease of 24.3% and a quarter-on-quarter drop of 68%; net loss was $88.7 million, further widening from $86.4 million in the same period last year. The company recorded a gross loss of $22.9 million, which included approximately $25 million in non-cash inventory impairment—indicating that Canaan Technology had to significantly write down the value of its mining machine inventory, reflecting a sharp decline in market demand.

More critically, the company's revenue guidance for Q2 is only $35 million to $45 million, indicating that performance will remain under pressure in the short term. As of March 31, 2026, the company's cash balance was $43.5 million, a significant decrease from $80.8 million at the end of 2025; however, the company recovered approximately $42 million in customer receivables in April, providing some relief to its liquidity.

Notably, despite losses in its main business, Canaan Technology's cryptocurrency reserves have reached a historic high: at the end of Q1, the company held 1,807.60 Bitcoins (worth $142 million). These digital assets provide some hedging on the balance sheet but also tie its performance closely to price fluctuations.

According to the latest data, Canaan Technology's Bitcoin reserves have risen to 1,915 coins, but their total value has dropped to $120 million.

The Broken Dream of AI Chips and the "Selling Shovels" Dilemma

Canaan Technology's predicament partly stems from a costly strategic misjudgment.

On June 24, 2025, the company announced the termination of its non-core AI chip business, fully returning to Bitcoin mining machines and self-mining. Its years-long exploration of a "second curve" ended in failure. According to public information, Canaan Technology achieved only about $900,000 in revenue from edge computing products in FY 2024, while related operating expenses reached approximately $21.42 million, accounting for 15% of the company's total operating expenses for the year. Under the pressure of a net loss of $249.8 million in FY 2024, this "money-burning, non-revenue-generating" business was decisively cut.

However, returning to its main business did not ease Canaan Technology's burdens significantly. The mining machine industry is facing unprecedented competitive pressure. Compared to competitors like Bitmain, Canaan Technology's market share continues to be squeezed. In Q2 2025, the company's total sales computing power was 6.4 million TH/s, growing only 3% year-on-year; by Q1 2026, product revenue had dropped to $42.9 million, a cliff-like decline from $164.9 million in Q4 2024.

Canaan Technology's founder, Zhang Nengeng

The essence of mining machine manufacturers is to "sell shovels"—their fate is closely tied to the Bitcoin cycle. When prices are high and mining profits are rich, miners are eager to invest in capital expenditures; once prices drop and competition for computing power intensifies, demand for mining machines cools rapidly. Since 2025, although Bitcoin prices have performed strongly at times, the mining industry as a whole has entered a low-margin phase in the "post-halving" era, severely impacting Canaan Technology's traditional business model.

Faced with the dual pressures of delisting and losses, Canaan Technology's management is attempting to transform from a pure hardware seller to a "computing power infrastructure service provider," seeking opportunities through vertical integration and energy layout.

Self-mining has become a key focus. By the end of Q1 2026, Canaan Technology's total computing power in 10 joint mining projects worldwide reached approximately 11 EH/s, a year-on-year increase of 66% and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 10.7%. The company acquired a 49% stake in Texas ABC Projects under Cipher Mining, and additionally, it launched a 3-megawatt mining pilot project in Canada, exploring the use of waste heat from mining machines for greenhouse agriculture; it also signed a 4.5-megawatt contract with a Japanese power engineering company to participate in grid load regulation.

On the capital side, in November 2025, Canaan Technology secured a total of $72 million in strategic investments from institutions including BH Digital and Galaxy Digital to strengthen its balance sheet and infrastructure expansion. In December of the same year, the company's board approved a $30 million share buyback plan, attempting to convey confidence to the market.

However, its stock price trend shows that the market has not bought into its efforts.

Conclusion

Canaan Technology's predicament is a microcosm of the entire cryptocurrency mining industry's winter.

Since 2025, the global capital market's narrative towards the cryptocurrency industry has shifted significantly. With the explosive demand for AI computing power, a large amount of capital that was originally directed towards mining machines and mining has shifted towards AI data centers and high-performance computing. Miners have begun to migrate their computing power to AI projects, directly compressing the demand space for Bitcoin mining machines.

A deeper challenge lies in the sustainability of the business model. As an ASIC chip design company, Canaan Technology needs to continuously invest in R&D to maintain product competitiveness.

From a broader perspective, Canaan Technology is undergoing a brutal cleansing of its bubble. When it went public in 2019, the company enjoyed a high valuation based on the concept of being the first blockchain stock; now, the market no longer buys into concepts but demands real cash flow and profitability.

Before the next bull market cycle for Bitcoin arrives, the profitability of mining companies will continue to be under pressure, and Canaan Technology must prove its ability to navigate through cycles within the next six months.