Powerful Bitcoin miner Bitmain is reported to have made some sudden changes to its board, with several members quitting – including the company’s co-founder Jihan Wu.

It is believed the shake-up may herald a shift towards the Satoshi Vision BCH client as the group turns its back on ABC.

Rival mining heavyweight Calvin Ayre quickly took to Twitter to speculate on the rumours, saying: “I suspect Jihan being kicked out is Bitmain wanting to get ride [sic] of the waste of energy that is ABC. I predict Bitmain will support SV.”

The switch includes a change of job title for Jihan from director to a supervisor – a key indicator that sweeping changes are afoot, according to legal experts.

“After changing to a supervisor, there is no voting right, so one’s power is smaller and one cannot participate in the business decision-making of the enterprise,” commented lawyer, Tian Yangang

Implications on the Hash-war

With Jihan off the board, this may now allow the Bitmain management to switch support over to the popular Bitcoin SV client. At the time of writing, the SV client now has up to 80% of the hashing power supporting the proposal.

Even though the Jihan-backed ABC client has 70% of the public nodes and the vast majority of companies supporting the roadmap, it would appear Bitmain is not willing to risk engagement into a risky hash war between the two popular implementations ahead of their planned $18 billion IPO.