Nasdaq-listed company said its crypto holdings were worth about $110 million, while AI game creation platform the9bit topped 8 million registered users.
The9 Limited reported net income of US$23 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, marking its strongest quarter since its 2004 IPO, as gains tied to digital assets became the main earnings driver. The company said first-quarter profit was driven primarily by the receipt of 1.425 billion 9BIT tokens, valued at fair value using observable prices from digital asset trading platforms including KuCoin, MEXC and BingX. It added that another 475 million 9BIT tokens were received in April 2026 and will be booked in second-quarter results, bringing total allocation under its cooperation agreement with the 9BIT Foundation to about 1.9 billion tokens. The company said its total cryptocurrency holdings, including BTC and 9BIT, were valued at about US$110 million as of the release date based on quoted market prices, while cautioning that the figure is for reference only and may not match realizable value. Alongside the crypto-driven earnings jump, The9 said its AI-powered game creation platform the9bit, launched in August 2025, has surpassed 8 million registered users and enabled the creation of more than 110,000 games. The9 also outlined plans to position the9bit as an AI-native game operating system, built around an orchestration layer (software coordinating multiple AI tools) that integrates AI agents, foundation models and development workflows. The company said an AI producer agent can turn a natural-language prompt into a structured development plan and direct more than 60 specialized AI agents across the production pipeline, with playable interactive experiences designed to be produced in as little as 10 minutes. Its board has approved a long-term incentive plan allowing senior management to receive equity awards of up to 12% of outstanding shares, but only if the company posts higher quarterly net income in each of the remaining three quarters of 2026 than in the first quarter, with additional multi-year vesting conditions and a three-year lock-up period.