Jeffrey Huang

Jeffrey Huang was born in Taiwan; his family emigrated when he was two, and he grew up in Southern California. As a youth he delivered newspapers by bicycle; he never went past high school.⁠[1]

His younger brother Stanley Huang and his cousin Steven Lin later joined him in L.A. Boyz. Steven Lin went back to the United States and became an orthopaedic surgeon; Stanley Huang won the Golden Melody Award for Best Male Vocalist in 2005.⁠[1][2]

At 18 Huang formed the hip-hop group L.A. Boyz under the guidance of singer Irene Yeh; at 20 he was its oldest member and picked up the nickname “Machi Big Brother.” Within the group he was often the butt of jokes and took a back seat to his two younger relatives.⁠[1]

In 1991 L.A. Boyz, three young men back from the United States, Huang, Stanley Huang and Steven Lin, appeared on the variety show Wu Deng Jiang. Produced under Ni Chung-hua, the group became popular with Taiwanese-language songs set to breaking dance moves; its songs included “SHIAM!”, “Jump” and “Phat”. Ni said that what really caught fire at the time was their dancing rather than their music.⁠[2]

L.A. Boyz broke up in 1997.⁠[1]

In 2003 Huang founded Machi Entertainment, a company engaged in artist management and music, film and television production that also runs the esports team Machi Esports (M17).⁠[3]

Huang founded the live-streaming app 17 Media around 2015; its Series A investors included Wang Sicong. That year 17 Media was removed from AppleAppleApple is a public technology company founded in 1976 and headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Its business includes the iPhone, Mac, iPad, wearables, and services such as digital content, payments, and cloud storage. The company builds its product system through in-house hardware, operating systems, and services.Open the full entry’s App Store and Google PlayGoogle PlayGoogle Play is a digital content distribution service operated by Google, centered on the Google Play Store, the app store for Android devices. Its predecessor, Android Market, launched in October 2008 alongside the first Android phone, and in March 2012 it merged with Google Music and the Google eBookstore and was renamed Google Play. As the main distribution channel for Android apps, its commissions, billing rules, and review practices have drawn controversy, including the Epic Games antitrust lawsuit in the United States and penalties under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.Open the full entry over prohibited content; technical co-founder Chen Tai-yuan later left over incompatible philosophies.⁠[1]

In September 2015 BusinessNext described him as a co-founder of 17 Media who did not hold an outright majority of its shares, with outside investors already on board. Huang said he did not want to behave like many Taiwanese investors who treat the largest funder as the one in charge, and that a suitable investor had to understand content, apps and social media.⁠[4]

In December 2016 the Singapore dating-app group Paktor announced that it had taken a controlling stake in 17 Media; 17 Media described the deal as an investment rather than an acquisition, and neither side disclosed the amount or the stake. Huang remained 17 Media’s founder and chairman, and Paktor chief executive Joseph Phua became 17 Media’s chief executive. 17 Media then had more than 15 million users worldwide.⁠[3]

Huang said Paktor shared 17 Media’s vision for social entertainment in Asia and that the deal gave 17 Media access to Paktor’s user base and an experienced management team.⁠[3]

In February 2018 the Ethereum-based project Mithril (MITH) published its team list naming Huang as founder; it described him as an early adopter of new technology since the dot-com bubble of 1998 and said the 17 Media he led was “the number 1 live-streaming app in developed Asia.”⁠[5]

Mithril’s “social mining” app Lit rewards user interaction with Mithril tokens that can be exchanged for bitcoin or ether; Huang presented the project at a blockchain forum on March 9, 2018, and the team set out its plan in a 30-page white paper.⁠[1]

In June 2018 the live-streaming company M17 Entertainment, which Huang co-founded, said it was deferring its U.S. initial public offering in favour of a private funding round, pointing to “settlement issues” with some investors. Huang criticised the lead underwriters Citigroup and Deutsche Bank in a post on his verified Facebook page that included an expletive.⁠[6]

Huang signed the founding announcement of C.R.E.A.M. Finance as its founder; it described the aim of an open financial system built on smart contracts, with an algorithmic money-market protocol on Binance Smart ChainBNB ChainBNB Chain is a multichain blockchain ecosystem with BNB as its native asset. Its core includes the Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible BNB Smart Chain, the opBNB layer-2 network and the decentralized storage network BNB Greenfield; its history traces to Binance Chain, launched in 2019.Open the full entry as the first product.⁠[7]

In a January 2022 interview Huang said he had handed control of Cream Finance to Andre Cronje in November 2020.⁠[8]

The Ethereum lending protocol Cream Finance lost $37.5 million in February 2021 and $18.8 million in August 2021 to flash-loan attacks; on October 27, 2021 another flash-loan attack drained more than $130 million.⁠[9]

On June 26, 2021 Huang bought gold-fur Bored Ape #197 for 109 ETHEthereumEthereum is an open, general-purpose smart contract blockchain that launched in 2015, and its native asset is ether (ETH). The project was proposed by Vitalik Buterin and advanced jointly by eight co-founders; the network now uses proof of stake and centers on the EVM, the account model, a rollup scaling roadmap, and the open EIP process.Open the full entry, roughly $196,000, his first gold-fur ape and the highest price yet paid for a Bored Ape. He posted on X: “All gold everything.” Earlier that month he had bought trippy-fur Bored Ape #2087 from J1mmy.eth for 42 ETH; he then held 68 Bored Apes, the fifth-largest holding.⁠[10]

On June 16, 2022 the on-chain investigator ZachXBTZachXBTZachXBT is a pseudonymous blockchain investigator who examines cryptocurrency scams, thefts and fund movements, and serves as an incident response advisor to Paradigm. His work involves public investigations, onchain analysis and collaboration with security researchers and law enforcement.Open the full entry published a long Medium post alleging misconduct by Huang across ten crypto projects. Its central allegation concerned Formosa Financial: the post said the project raised about 44,000 ETH in its 2018 token sale and that two withdrawals of 11,000 ETH each were taken from its treasury on June 22, 2018, with part of the funds going to associates not publicly listed on the team; it also alleged that Mithril gamed BinanceBinanceBinance is a global digital asset trading and multi-asset financial platform launched in 2017 and co-founded by Changpeng Zhao and Yi He. Its business has expanded from spot trading to derivatives, wallets, payments, a public blockchain ecosystem, market data, traditional securities, and artificial intelligence interfaces; its history also includes security incidents, regulatory enforcement across multiple jurisdictions, a 2023 U.S. criminal settlement, and subsequent compliance restructuring.Open the full entry’s July 2018 community coin vote and placed Cream Finance, Mith Cash, Typhoon Cash and other projects within the pattern it described. These are ZachXBT’s allegations.⁠[11]

Huang’s responses quoted in the post said he was paid for his advisory role at Formosa but did not know about a 4,980 ETH payment, that Mithril did not cheat in the vote, that he lost money on Mith Cash and Typhoon Cash, and that he returned in 2022 to steward Cream Finance and helped recover funds.⁠[11]

Huang responded on X: “This is misinformation. If he wasn’t anon, I’d sue him for defamation.” Huang had earlier advised Formosa Financial before leaving that role; ZachXBT did not provide evidence linking the addresses in question to him.⁠[8]

On December 15, 2022 Binance delisted MITH and three other tokens, saying they no longer met its listing standards. Mithril then asked Binance to return the 200,000 BNBBNBBNB is the native crypto asset of BNB Chain. It was launched by the Binance ecosystem through a token offering in 2017, originally ran on Ethereum, migrated to Binance Chain in 2019, and has since been used for fees, staking, and governance on BNB Smart Chain. Its supply mechanism combines the periodic Auto-Burn with the BEP-95 real-time burn.Open the full entry deposit it said it had paid for its first listing in November 2018, worth about $53 million at the time and about $1 million at listing, saying it needed the money to keep operating; the project had been largely inactive for almost two years.⁠[12]

On April 14, 2023 Huang sold nearly 40 Otherdeeds and two DeGods on Blur; the next day he announced on X that he was leaving the NFT space and pinned the post. On April 16 he spent more than $110,000 on Bored Ape #124 and $25,000 on Mutant Ape #12824 on Blur, and on April 17 he bought CryptoPunk #5433 for $112,000. At his peak he held more than 100 Bored Apes and Mutant Apes, and he had given NFTs to entertainers including Jay Chou, Bolin Chen and Kai Ko.⁠[13]

In June 2023 Huang sued ZachXBT for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, arguing that the 2022 post accusing him of embezzling 22,000 ETH from Formosa Financial lacked evidence and was “categorically false,” and seeking compensatory damages and a jury trial.⁠[14][15]

ZachXBT called the suit “baseless” and “an attempt to chill free speech” and raised money for his legal defence; donors included CZChangpeng ZhaoChangpeng Zhao (commonly abbreviated CZ) is a Canadian entrepreneur and the founder and former chief executive officer of Binance. He entered the Bitcoin industry with a background in trading-systems engineering and founded Binance in 2017; in 2023 he pleaded guilty in the United States to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program and resigned, personally bearing a $50 million criminal fine and a $150 million CFTC civil penalty, while Binance as a company separately bore billions of dollars in criminal and regulatory settlements; he served four months in prison in 2024 and received a U.S. presidential pardon in 2025. Since then he has mainly been involved in education, investment, and advisory work on digital asset policy.Open the full entry, who gave $50,000, and Justin Sun, who gave $10,000, and the total passed $1 million.⁠[15][16]

On June 22, 2023 Huang sold 15 BAYC NFTs at once for 532 ETH, about $1 million, bringing his realised losses to about 5,900 ETH, roughly $11 million; in March 2023 the figure had been about 2,400 ETH.⁠[16]

On June 24 he sold 19 Bored Apes in a single Blur transaction for 651 ETH, and the next day he bought 14 back. The BAYC floor price fell to about 33 ETH, its lowest level in ether terms since November 2021.⁠[17]

In August 2023 Huang withdrew his defamation suit against ZachXBT, saying on social media that the two had “mutually agreed to move on” and that ZachXBT had made “important amendments to his article.” ZachXBT confirmed the suit had been dropped and said he would return unused donations.⁠[18]

In mid-September 2025 the Hyperliquid wallet “0x020c” associated with Huang showed a profit of about $44 million. On September 29 he closed a $25 million HYPE position at a $4.45 million loss; by October 1 his 5x leveraged long on Plasma (XPL) showed an unrealised loss of about $8.7 million, alongside a 15x leveraged ether long, while the account as a whole remained in profit.⁠[19]

Figures from the on-chain analytics firm Arkham showed that by May 23, 2026 Huang had lost nearly $78 million trading perpetual futures on HyperliquidHyperliquidHyperliquid is a layer-one blockchain designed from scratch for financial trading. It uses its own HyperBFT consensus, has perpetual futures and spot order books built into the chain (HyperCore), and offers an Ethereum-compatible smart contract environment (HyperEVM); its native token is HYPE. Launched in 2023, it became one of the largest decentralized perpetual futures venues thanks to its fully onchain order books, and later opened permissionless deployment of perpetual markets on commodities, stock indices and FX, as well as outcome markets, through HIP-3 and HIP-4.Open the full entry over six months and had been liquidated more than 335 times, including a cluster of 262 in January 2026; after another liquidation that day his account balance stood at about $141,000.⁠[20]

On June 30, 2026 another of Huang’s ether longs was liquidated, this time without a fresh deposit to cover it. Arkham put his losses on Hyperliquid since September 2025 at more than $80 million.⁠[21]

On October 17, 2026, during ApeFest, Huang sold the gold-fur BAYC #197 he had bought in 2021 to collector Adam WeitsmanAdam WeitsmanAdam Weitsman is the owner and chief executive officer of Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling, with interests in restaurants and consumer brands. He collects stoneware and NFTs and has donated objects to the New York State Museum.Open the full entry at Beeple Studios in an over-the-counter deal facilitated by Yuga Grails OTC; the price was not disclosed. Yuga Grails OTC said it was the highest-valued Bored Ape trade of the previous 12 months. The same weekend Weitsman also bought a blue-fur, blue-beam-eyed Bored Ape from him.⁠[22][23]

On October 31, 2026 PP Man, head of Yuga LabsYuga LabsYuga Labs is a company that develops NFT brands, digital content, and virtual worlds; it launched Bored Ape Yacht Club in 2021, and its businesses include BAYC-related collections and Otherside, along with participation in building the ApeChain ecosystem. The company acquired CryptoPunks, Meebits, Moonbirds, and 10KTF, and later transferred these projects one after another. In 2026, Michael Figge became chief executive officer and Greg Solano became chairman.Open the full entry’ Grails OTC, helped Adam Weitsman buy three Bored Apes from Huang and fellow BAYC member BaviBull: a blue-beam-eyed cheetah-fur ape, an astronaut ape and a trippy-fur ape. The prices were not disclosed.⁠[24]

Before 17 Media, Huang ran a club, a restaurant and a limited-edition sneaker shop: the shop lost money, the restaurant was mildly profitable, and he sold his stake in the club after reports that it owed suppliers money. His ventures have also included a talent agency, fashion brands, esports, live streaming and virtual currency. He describes himself as a “problem solver” and has long wanted to buy an NBANBAThe National Basketball Association (NBA) is a North American professional basketball league with 30 teams.Open the full entry team.⁠[1]