Moore's Threads cannot avoid the "unbanning wave".

Author: Su Yang, Tencent Technology

“The lifting of restrictions on the sale of restricted shares” has become an unavoidable hurdle for Moore Threads.

On September 7, Moore Threads, a leading domestic chip manufacturer, plummeted 20%, closing at 415.49 yuan, with a market capitalization of 195.292 billion yuan, a new low since its listing.

On September 7, Moore Threads, a leading domestic chip manufacturer, plummeted 20%, closing at 415.49 yuan, with a market capitalization of 195.292 billion yuan, a new low since its listing.

The trigger for this round of sharp decline was the unlocking of 25.7745 million shares of Moore Threads' initial public offering and public offering, representing 5.48% of the total share capital. After the unlocking, the number of circulating shares increased to approximately 56 million, expanding the total circulating shares by 85%. Rewinding to early December 2025, Moore Threads, as the "first domestic GPU stock," was the first to open on the STAR Market, with its market capitalization once exceeding 440 billion yuan. A single successful IPO subscription yielded a floating profit of over 280,000 yuan, earning it the nickname "Moore King." At that time, the entire semiconductor industry was queuing up for IPOs. "Companies had no choice but to take this path to survive and develop," said an industry insider. Investors showed great enthusiasm in the early stages of its IPO, reflecting both confidence in China's computing power and a pricing in of a "future yet to come." At the time, to prevent investors from getting carried away, Moore Threads issued a statement to cool things down, warning of risks such as the company's stock price having risen significantly in a short period, continued losses, and the lack of substantial revenue from new products. Now, facing the market capitalization impact of the first "restricted sale" expiration, Moore Threads is not shying away from the issue. "The company is aware of today's stock price fluctuations, and the relevant information disclosure procedures for the lifting of the lock-up period have been followed as required. The company's production and operations are currently continuing to improve," Moore Threads subsequently responded. Like Moore's Threads, MiniMax, one of the "two giants of Chinese large-scale models," also experienced a sharp drop on its first trading day after the lock-up period expired. From this perspective, a batch of Chinese hard-tech companies that went public after Moore's Threads, including Muxi, Biren, and Tianshu, will all face the challenge of the lifting of lock-up restrictions on their shares. However, there are exceptions to the lock-up lifting curse. On July 8, 5.76% of Zhipu's shares were released from lock-up restrictions, and the stock price rose by nearly 20% at one point during the day, closing at 13.35%. The logic behind the surge after the lock-up lifting was summarized by outsiders as "the long-term commitment of cornerstone investors" and the still relatively low proportion of shares in circulation after the lock-up lifting. Optimists believe that selling on the day of the lock-up release is a very common phenomenon due to the increased number of shares in circulation. This echoes the enthusiasm of investors during the IPOs of related companies. One primary market investor told Tencent Technology, "Institutional investors will definitely sell their allocated shares if they can; they can still make a lot of money at the current price." This investor believes that the first batch of shares released from lock-up has the shortest lock-up period, and the allocation itself is about making quick and easy money. He emphasized that investors' selling behavior is unrelated to performance. "Everyone understands the psychology of institutional investors." "Your performance this year and next year may show high growth, but you might still be losing money," another veteran semiconductor industry professional emphasized the logic of securing profits. "The initial offering price was 114 yuan, now it's over 400 yuan, a three- or four-fold profit. Why wouldn't you sell it?" Specifically, in the first half of 2026, Moore Threads' revenue reached 1.736 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 147.4%, surpassing the 1.506 billion yuan for the entire previous year. The first-half loss narrowed significantly from 271 million yuan in the same period last year to 12 million yuan, a reduction of 95.7%, just one step away from the break-even point. However, constrained by rising costs such as HBM and the current state of cluster delivery, Moore Threads' gross profit margin has also been diluted. Among them, the gross profit margin was 67.35% in the first quarter, but fell to 49.26% in the second quarter, a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 18.1 percentage points. The overall gross profit margin for the first half of 2026 was 56.95%, a decrease of 12.19 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Returning to the topic of the lifting of the lock-up period for IPO placement shares, investors who "run away" on the day the lock-up period expires are often viewed with prejudice. However, investors who actually participate in the placement also need to bear the costs and risks of their funds. Therefore, it is reasonable for investors to realize their profits, and such strategic placements are not long-term "patient capital." "Ordinary investors can exit at any time, but institutional investors often have very long lock-up periods, so there's nothing they can do," said the aforementioned primary market investor. Many industry professionals generally believe that the December share release is the key challenge facing Moore Threads. According to public information, on December 7th, approximately 186 million restricted shares of Moore Threads will be released, accounting for 39.55% of the total share capital. More importantly, this release is seven times the current scale, and it corresponds to pre-IPO original shareholders. "Starting in December, primary investors will have their shares fully released, corresponding to large primary investors—long-term capital," said the aforementioned senior semiconductor industry professional. While the aforementioned industry professional is relatively optimistic, another private equity investor who has long followed the semiconductor industry offers a more pessimistic assessment. He believes the current sharp drop following the lifting of restrictions is reasonable, primarily due to the mismatch between product performance and price. Or, to put it another way, domestically produced cards are too expensive. "These fabless companies price their products based on orders for next year and the year after," the aforementioned private equity investor said. In other words, fabless companies plan their production capacity based on intended orders and then work backward to determine product prices. "HBM is ridiculously expensive now. This year, a domestic card costs around 100,000 yuan. If next year it costs 200,000 to 300,000 yuan for a card that still performs at the same level as the H200, the investment is extremely low in terms of cost-effectiveness." According to this investor, major companies and AI labs will "not be able to afford" such expensive cards in the future. Under these circumstances, future orders from intelligent computing centers across the country have the potential to support domestic computing power represented by Moore's Threads. The incremental demand from intelligent computing centers is also on its way. According to a report by Cailian Press, on September 7, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Information and Communication Industry." The plan outlines 13 key indicators, including a target of 9800 EFLOPS (exprabbit-level floating-point operations per second) for intelligent computing power by 2030. However, policy support and incremental orders are passive external conditions; optimizing the cost per unit of token is the variable that domestic computing power needs to actively adjust, and it is also a necessary condition for longer-term, healthy development. The market has always favored giving new things opportunities and will use time to verify "survival of the fittest." This logic has been repeatedly proven in areas such as social networking, group buying, and shared bicycles. Now, the same applies to computing chips.