Despite repeated defeats, Maji keeps fighting. Where does his seemingly endless money come from?

Author: Clow

Produced by: Plain Language Blockchain

Last night, the crypto market witnessed another dramatic series of liquidations.

Well-known investor Huang Licheng (affectionately known as "Brother Machi") had his long positions on the decentralized derivatives platform Hyperliquid liquidated as many as 10 times in a short period of time. His account balance shrank dramatically from $1.3 million to just $53,178—less than 5% of its original value.

This is the most brutal scene in high-leverage trading: within a few hours, more than $1.25 million vanished.

Ironically, just days earlier, he had injected $254,700 USDC into Hyperliquid, increasing his long ETH position to 11,100 ETH, a total value exceeding $36 million. However, only a few days later, this newly injected capital, along with previous reserves, was once again crushed in the highly leveraged meat grinder.

If the story ended here, it would just be another tragic end for a highly leveraged gambler.

This is not the first time he has pulled off such a "miraculous operation". Back on October 10, 2024, he experienced an even more dramatic liquidation: his $79 million long ETH position was forcibly liquidated, and his account quickly reversed from a profit of $44.5 million to a net loss of $10 million, resulting in a total profit and loss reversal of more than $54.5 million.

But after each liquidation, he would immediately replenish his margin and start the next round of high-stakes gambling: $199,800 on December 12, $275,000 on November 5, and another $254,700 a few days ago…

Ironically, while the media was widely reporting on his huge losses, Huang Licheng shared a photo of a swimming pool on Instagram with the caption: "California Love".

Last night's ten consecutive liquidations brought his account balance to a new low—just $53,178. But based on his past behavior, it's likely that he'll soon inject new funds and resume his high-leverage gambling spree.

This raises a question that everyone wants answered: after repeatedly suffering losses of tens of millions of dollars, where does his money come from to mechanically replenish the margin again and again?

01. Crazy Leverage Game

To understand Huang Licheng's funding sources, one must first understand his trading style in the crypto market—extremely aggressive.

He is primarily active on the decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid. This platform uses the HyperBFT high-performance consensus mechanism, enabling "millisecond-level matching speeds." While this sounds impressive, during periods of extreme market volatility, this speed also introduces structural risks: highly leveraged positions can be liquidated rapidly and mechanically, leaving traders "no chance to escape."

Huang Licheng has a particular fondness for such extreme operations. On-chain data shows that he frequently uses extreme leverage of 15x to 25x for long positions in ETH. This leverage means that a market drop of only 4-6% would wipe out his entire margin. Last night's ten consecutive liquidations are a true reflection of this extreme leverage during periods of high market volatility.

Behind this frenzied trading pattern lies a shocking fact: no matter how much he loses, he can immediately replenish his margin and continue gambling. From a $54.5 million profit-to-loss reversal to last night's account balance being almost zero, after each huge loss, he was able to inject hundreds of thousands of dollars in a short period of time, or even rebuild positions worth tens of millions of dollars.

This ability to immediately deploy new margin after suffering tens of millions of dollars in losses demonstrates that these losses did not stem from the depletion of its overall net assets, but rather from a specially allocated, highly liquid trading reserve.

So, how exactly was this bottomless pool of funds established?

02. Where does the money come from? Unveiling the three-tiered capital structure.

The first layer: "Anchored Capital" of Traditional Technology

Huang Licheng's wealth is not entirely based on crypto assets. Before becoming the "crypto gambling god," he was a successful technology entrepreneur.

In 2015, Huang Licheng co-founded 17 Media (later M17 Entertainment/17LIVE). This platform quickly grew into a leading live entertainment platform in Asia, and after a failed IPO in New York in 2018, it successfully listed in Singapore in 2023.

The most critical financial event occurred in November 2020. Huang Licheng announced his resignation from the 17LIVE board of directors, during which 17LIVE repurchased the company shares he held.

This share buyback occurred just before the 2021 cryptocurrency bull market, providing Huang Licheng with "anchor capital." This cash liquidity from a mature company laid a solid financial foundation for his subsequent high-risk investments in the cryptocurrency market, ensuring he could withstand significant short-term losses in subsequent derivatives transactions.

Second layer: Controversial past events of early crypto projects

In addition to his success in traditional technology fields, Huang Licheng was also deeply involved in early crypto projects, but this history is full of controversy.

The most representative example is the Mithril (MITH) project. Huang Licheng was the founder of this decentralized social media platform. However, the project was later criticized as "having only a concept, a crude product, and no real users." Although the price of the MITH token plummeted by more than 99% after the market cooled down, and the project was eventually delisted in 2022, public reports clearly indicate that the token issuer "made a lot of money" in the early stages of the project.

This reflects the typical chaos of the ICO era in 2017-2018: regardless of the long-term utility or sustainability of a project, founders could obtain substantial capital through the initial token issuance event. Meanwhile, a large number of retail investors suffered heavy losses after the projects collapsed.

Huang Licheng also co-founded the decentralized lending protocol Cream Finance (CREAM). The protocol experienced several major security incidents in 2021, including a $34 million vulnerability attack and a flash loan attack worth up to $130 million.

It should be emphasized that the ultimate failure of these early projects caused huge losses to investors. This history is only used as background information and does not constitute investment advice for any similar projects.

The third layer: Liquidity extraction from the NFT empire

Building on traditional capital and early-stage crypto projects, Huang Licheng uses NFT assets as a financial instrument to continuously generate highly liquid crypto assets to supplement his trading reserves.

Huang Licheng is a renowned collector of top NFT collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). As of June 2023, he held NFTs worth over $9.5 million in his Ethereum wallet linked to machibigbrother.eth.

However, his NFT strategy goes far beyond simple collecting; it's a sophisticated financial strategy focused on liquidity generation.

Massive sell-off: In February 2023, he sold 1,010 NFTs in 48 hours, which was "one of the largest NFT sell-offs in history."

ApeCoin monetization: In August 2022, he sold 13 MAYC (worth approximately $350,000) within a week and transferred 1,496,600 ApeCoins to Binance.

Blur liquidity mining: He was a major recipient of Blur token airdrops and actively used the Blur Blend platform for NFT collateralized lending, once being the platform's largest lender, providing 58 loans totaling 1180 ETH.

This high-frequency, large-scale sell-off and NFT lending activity aims to maximize the acquisition of airdrop rewards and convert high-value digital assets into highly liquid ETH or stablecoins, thereby continuously supplying ammunition for his derivatives trading reserves.

It's worth noting that Huang Licheng also incurred costs while participating in BlurNFT liquidity mining. He incurred a realized loss of approximately 2400 ETH, worth about $4.2 million, while attempting to mine tokens through Bored Ape NFTs. However, this $4.2 million loss was likely offset by the substantial profits he gained through large-scale Blur airdrops and other asset liquidations.

03. The perpetual motion machine of capital

Therefore, Huang Licheng's ability to continuously absorb tens of millions of dollars in liquidation losses and immediately reopen aggressive positions stems from a diversified and massive capital structure:

Traditional technology exit: Stable and large-scale fiat currency liquidity obtained through the sale of 17LIVE shares in 2020.

Early Crypto Native Capital: Despite the controversy surrounding the projects themselves, early token offerings did indeed accumulate crypto native capital.

High-speed NFT liquidity generation: Strategically convert high-value blue-chip NFT assets into ETH or stablecoins that can be used as collateral through large-scale sales, airdrop rewards, and NFT-backed lending.

Given the publicly confirmed total amount of major liquidations and profit/loss reversals (over $54.5 million), and his ability to inject hundreds of thousands of dollars in margin immediately after liquidations on multiple occasions, the size of unallocated liquid reserves should be conservatively estimated to be over $100 million to maintain such a high-risk trading style.

Even after experiencing 10 consecutive liquidations last night, leaving his account with only $53,178, based on his past behavior, it's highly likely that new funds will be injected soon. Huang Licheng's calm demeanor after the losses were widely reported, sharing a pool photo on Instagram with the caption "California Love," suggests that these liquidations (despite the enormous absolute amounts) have not threatened his overall solvency.

More noteworthy is that Huang Licheng's strategic vision extends beyond the trading of existing assets to include initiating new capital generation mechanisms. In late 2024, he launched a new MACHI token project on the Blast blockchain, aiming to raise $5 million in liquidity through a "benchmark value event," and quickly attracted large investors with a declared capital of $125 million.

This wealth cycle, from traditional exits → early-stage crypto projects → NFT mining → derivatives trading → new token issuance (MACHI), reveals a continuous and aggressive model of capital withdrawal and redeployment. When a liquidity resource is locked up or exhausted by high-risk positions, a new community-driven tokenized project is immediately launched to refresh its capital reserves.

04. Summary

Due to the complete transparency of his on-chain transactions, Huang Licheng has assumed an important but controversial role as a market barometer. His transactions are large enough to trigger significant price movements and community discussions.

However, for ordinary investors, Huang Licheng's case serves more as a warning than a role model.

First, the risks of high-leverage trading are extreme. 25x leverage means that a mere 4% drop in the market can wipe out your entire principal. Even someone as well-funded as Huang Licheng suffered tens of millions of dollars in losses from such trading.

Secondly, capital depth determines risk tolerance. Huang Licheng was able to immediately replenish his margin after incurring huge losses because he had diversified sources of capital and substantial liquidity reserves. Ordinary investors clearly do not possess such resources; a single liquidation could be fatal.

Third, on-chain transparency is a double-edged sword. While transparency satisfies users' demands for data openness, the mechanical efficiency of the HyperBFT clearing process eliminates the possibility of manual risk hedging during market shocks. The platform's efficiency itself becomes a structural risk amplifier for highly leveraged traders.

Huang Licheng's continued reliance on extreme leverage and the constant launch of new token projects foreshadows the continued significant market volatility generated by his financial activities. His capital model demonstrates how traditional tech wealth can be efficiently combined with crypto-native wealth to support some of the most aggressive trading styles in the crypto market.

But for every investor involved, the more important question is:

Do you want to be the one who creates liquidity, or the one who provides liquidity?

In this market, survival is always more important than getting rich quick.