On Tuesday, the Chinese technology news outlet Leiphone reported that Bitmain, the largest producer of hardware designed for use in mining cryptocurrency in the world, has ceased paying salaries to its employees for September going forward, according to numerous employees familiar with the matter.

Based in Beijing, the company specializes in application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) computers which are specially tuned for the purpose of mining cryptocurrencies. Reportedly, it has already laid off some staff, cut back all “bonuses and incentives,” and still has not made its payroll due since last month.

An internal company document reportedly says, “For the month of September, the company has yet to achieve a net positive cash flow, especially in the orders of ASICs. The Executive Management Team therefore decided that salaries for the month of September will be paused, to be reviewed after October 7 after the holiday.”

The company, which was founded in 2013, maintains roughly 70% of the market share of ASIC production during peak periods of demand. The company’s Antminer ASIC series is presently the fastest series of machines in terms of hash rate computations for mining Bitcoin.

The company had announced a reward scheme in August of 2022, which would benefit loyal customers for each order. The scheme was launched prior to the “crypto winter,” when the prices for popular tokens crashed, causing investors to cool on the sector, and major players like FTX and TerraLuna to go under. Even after the onset of the crypto-winter, the company continued to promote a loyalty scheme for customers designed to promote larger orders.

The company had announced in 2021 that it was planning an initial public offering, with a valuation of $5 billion, which was to occur by 2022. However as the crypto market has entered a bear market, it presumably led to the company shelving the plan.