Blockchain’s first publicly traded stock price crashes 96%—will Canaan Technology be delisted?

On July 15, Canaan Technology released an announcement saying it had received a written notice from Nasdaq granting an additional 180-day extension; the deadline has been extended to January 11, 2027. Previously, its ADS share price had been below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days, triggering a compliance alert for failing to meet Nasdaq’s minimum bid price requirement.

The market response was muted. At the close of trading, Canaan Technology was at $0.29, with a market cap of about $217 million, down more than 90% from its market-cap peak at the time of its Nasdaq listing in November 2019. Once a company crowned with the halo of “the world’s first blockchain stock,” it is now standing on the brink of delisting.

180-day countdown to delisting

The tug-of-war between Canaan Technology and Nasdaq’s compliance department began in May 2025. At that time, the company first received a delisting warning because its share price had stayed below $1. It then temporarily averted the crisis thanks to a rebound in the Bitcoin price. However, good times did not last. On January 14, 2026, Nasdaq issued another notice stating that the closing price of Canaan Technology’s ADS had been below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days, and the company had to complete compliance by July 13—meaning the closing price had to reach or exceed $1 for 10 consecutive trading days.

On July 13, the initial grace period expired. Canaan Technology failed to meet the requirement. In an emergency move on July 1, the company transferred its listing tier from the Nasdaq Global Market to the Nasdaq Capital Market, which has a relatively lower threshold, and submitted an application to seek an additional 180 days.

On July 15, the application was approved, and the new deadline was set for January 11, 2027.

According to Nasdaq rules, if the company still cannot restore compliance at that time, Canaan Technology may face the fate of a final delisting. The company has said that if necessary, it would consider implementing a reverse stock split to raise the share price, but this is usually viewed by the market as a weak signal.

2026 Q1 financial report: total revenue down 24.3%, net loss $88.7 million

Canaan Technology’s weak share price is not without reason. Its latest financial report shows the company is in severe financial “blood loss.”

On May 19, 2026, Canaan Technology released its unaudited first-quarter financial results: total revenue of $62.7 million, down 24.3% year over year, and down sharply 68% quarter over quarter; net loss of $88.7 million, further widening from the prior-year period ($86.4 million). The company recorded a gross loss of $22.9 million, including an approximately $25.0 million non-cash inventory impairment—meaning Canaan Technology had to write down the value of its mining-gear inventory on a large scale, reflecting a sharp contraction in market demand.

More severely, its revenue guidance for the second quarter was only $35.0 million to $45.0 million, indicating that performance will still face pressure in the near term. As of March 31, 2026, the company’s cash balance was $43.5 million, down significantly from $80.8 million at the end of 2025; however, in April it recovered about $42.0 million in customer accounts receivable, providing some relief to liquidity.

Notably, despite losses from its core business, Canaan Technology’s cryptocurrency holdings hit a record high: by the end of the first quarter, the company held 1,807.60 BTC (valued at $142 million). These digital assets provide some hedging on the balance sheet, but they also bind the company’s performance tightly to Bitcoin price volatility.

Based on the latest data, Canaan Technology’s Bitcoin reserves have risen to 1,915 BTC, but its total value has fallen to $120 million.

AI chip dream collapses and the “selling shovels” dilemma

Part of Canaan Technology’s predicament stems from an expensive strategic misjudgment.

On June 24, 2025, the company announced it was terminating its non-core AI chip business and fully returning to Bitcoin mining rigs and self-operated mining. Its multi-year “second-curve” exploration ended in failure. According to public information, in fiscal year 2024 Canaan Technology generated only about $0.9 million in edge-computing product revenue, but its operating expenditures for that business were as high as $21.42 million, accounting for 15% of the company’s total operating expenses for the year. Under pressure from a $249.8 million net loss in fiscal year 2024, this “burns money but doesn’t produce” business was decisively cut.

However, returning to its main business did not make things much easier for Canaan Technology. The mining-gear industry is facing unprecedented competitive pressure. Compared with peers such as Bitmain, Canaan Technology’s market share has continued to be squeezed. In the second quarter of 2025, the company’s total sold computing power was 6.40 million TH/s, up only 3% year over year; by the first quarter of 2026, product revenue had fallen to $42.9 million, a steep drop from $164.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Canaan Technology founder Zhang Nangeng

The essence of a mining-gear manufacturer is “selling shovels”—its fate is closely tied to the Bitcoin cycle. When the coin price is high and mining profits are rich, miners’ appetite for capital expenditures is strong; once the coin price weakens and competition for network hashrate intensifies, demand for mining rigs cools quickly. Since 2025, although Bitcoin’s price has shown strength in some periods, the mining industry overall has entered a low marginal-return stage in the “post-halving” era, dealing a heavy blow to Canaan Technology’s traditional business model.

Facing dual pressure from both delisting risk and losses, Canaan Technology management is trying to shift from being a pure hardware seller to a “computing power infrastructure service provider,” seeking opportunities through vertical integration and energy initiatives.

Self-operated mining has become a key lever. By the end of Q1 2026, Canaan Technology’s total hashrate across 10 global joint mining projects reached 11 EH/s, up 66% year over year and up 10.7% quarter over quarter. Through acquiring 49% of the Texas ABC Projects from Cipher Mining, the company also launched a 3 MW mining pilot project in Canada to explore using residual heat from mining rigs for greenhouse agriculture; it additionally signed a 4.5 MW contract with a Japanese power engineering company to participate in grid load regulation.

On the capital side, in November 2025 Canaan Technology received strategic investments totaling $72 million from institutions including BH Digital and Galaxy Digital to strengthen its balance sheet and expand infrastructure. In the same year, in December, the company’s board approved a $30 million share repurchase plan in an effort to convey confidence to the market.

However, its stock price performance shows the market did not buy into it.

Summary

Canaan Technology’s predicament is a microcosm of the entire crypto-mining winter.

Since 2025, global capital markets have significantly shifted their narrative toward the crypto industry. With the explosive demand for AI computing power, a large amount of capital that previously went to mining rigs and mining has moved to AI data centers and high-performance computing; miners are migrating computing power to AI projects, directly compressing the demand space for Bitcoin mining rigs.

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 more macro perspective, Canaan Technology is going through a brutal de-bubbling process. When it listed in 2019, the company enjoyed high valuations thanks to the “first blockchain stock” concept; now, the market no longer pays for the concept, but demands real cash flow and profitability.

Before the next Bitcoin bull-cycle arrives, miners’ profitability will likely remain under pressure, and Canaan Technology must prove within 6 months that it can survive the cycle.