Uncle Ma Ji's Zeroing History: From Successful Entrepreneurship to "Reckless" High-Leverage Naked Swimmer Gambler

Former whale “Brother Machi” Huang Licheng’s complete journey from a peak of 45 million USD to total loss witnesses the rise and fall of an era’s trend chaser. (Background recap: Brother Machi: After liquidation, the best approach is to go naked, losing 13 million USD on Hyperliquid accounts—does that not hurt?) (Additional background: Yuga Labs teams up with Brother Machi’s Six Studios to launch boring ape BAYC series animations.) A few days ago (4), the former whale “Brother Machi” Huang Licheng (@machibigbrother) made a move again. Using only $16,700 remaining on the decentralized trading platform Hyperliquid, he reopened a 100 ETH position with 25x leverage. After 24 hours, liquidation struck again. Early morning on November 5, monitoring data showed the account balance was only $1,718. This operation was only 47 days away from his account’s peak assets. Returning to September 18, with high leverage long positions, he once had an unrealized profit of $44.84 million, becoming one of the most watched contract whales on-chain. However, on October 11, a sudden crash shocked the market, causing crypto assets to plummet. Over the following month, prices continued to decline. Amid ongoing anti-liquidation efforts and increased positions, Hyperliquid’s liquidation interface flashed red like a storm center. Huang Licheng’s account was “crashed” in a series of forced liquidations: not only did he give back all profits, but his principal of $15 million was nearly wiped out. His account, once close to $60 million at its peak, was now reduced to “shattered silver.” In response, he left a message on social media: “Was fun while it lasted.” Thirty years ago, he stood in the true “spotlight.” That was Taiwan in the 1990s, when hip-hop culture was just entering the Chinese-speaking world. Young people dressed in baggy jeans, stepping to the beat, screaming at the top of their lungs—these were the most avant-garde figures of the time. Huang Licheng, leader of the earliest Chinese hip-hop boy band L.A. Boyz, controlled the stage, the audience, and the trend of the era. Thirty years later, this person who once sought to control the rhythm has experienced countless speculative ventures from different angles and methods, trying to stand at the crest of capital waves. Yet, all of this has spiraled into chaos amid madness and noise. From hip-hop kid to tech entrepreneur, from entertainment trendsetter to online serial entrepreneur, and then to crypto whale and “scalpel” label—over the past two decades, every turn of Huang Licheng has been dramatic and controversial. Clearly, he is accustomed to riding the trend, understands the attention economy, and refuses to miss any opportunity. Born in Yunlin, Taiwan, in 1972, Huang Licheng immigrated to California with his family at age 2. Rebellious by nature and street-smart, during high school he formed a dance troupe called Funky Asian Buddy with his brother Huang Lixing and cousin Lin Zhiwen, spending days on the streets, battling in dance-offs, and seeking opportunities in nightclubs. In 1991, their unique style caught attention, and they officially returned to Taiwan’s music scene as L.A. Boyz. Using a mix of Chinese and English with a street-style flair, they swept across Taiwan. At that time, the Mandarin music scene was dominated by Japanese idol styles, but L.A. Boyz brought a fresh American hip-hop vibe, pioneering the genre in the Chinese-speaking world and sparking a trend. The original L.A. Boyz lineup: Lin Zhiwen (left), Huang Lixing (center), Huang Licheng (right). Since debuting in 1992, L.A. Boyz released 13 albums and was hugely popular. However, as Taiwan’s music scene shifted towards ballads in the late 1990s, their cool hip-hop style gradually lost mainstream appeal. After disbanding in 1997, Huang Licheng gradually moved into business and behind-the-scenes roles, venturing into tech startups. In 2003, he founded Machi Entertainment, engaging in music production and artist management—transforming from artist to boss, producer, and businessman. Huang Licheng always aimed to be the “first to try new things” and was keenly aware of the power of traffic. While shifting behind the scenes in entertainment, he turned to tech entrepreneurship early on, recognizing the value of traffic and attention. In 2015, Huang Licheng and his tech partners founded 17 Media, with its flagship product being the “17 Live” app, a real-time video social platform. At that time, Douyu had just emerged in mainland China, and later platforms like Inke and Huajiao had yet to launch. The app quickly gained popularity in Taiwan, attracting millions of users, with a valuation reaching tens of billions of NTD, backed by investments from Wang Sihong, LeEco Sports, and others. Huang Licheng, as founder of 17 Media, delivered a speech at MOX Demo Day. Due to early regulatory issues, various content on the app, especially beauty streamers, was overly explicit, leading to temporary removal from the App Store and Google Play. Later, Huang led the team to adjust content policies and shifted focus to markets like Japan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. In 2017, 17 Media merged with social app Paktor to form M17 Entertainment, rebranding the platform as 17LIVE. Although Huang Licheng served as chairman, he gradually reduced his shares and exited the company. In 2018, 17 Media attempted an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange but canceled at the last minute, with the listing plans falling through. Insiders revealed that M17 failed to meet audit and reporting requirements and could not overcome its valuation hurdles. Subsequently, the company shifted focus to Japan. By 2021, Huang Licheng resigned from all positions, exited management, retained his equity, and the Japanese team took over main operations. Beyond 17 Media, Huang Licheng also experimented with other ventures such as the adult chat platform Swag, Machi Xcelsior Studios, and more—most of which did not enter mainstream view until he encountered the best speculative ground: the crypto world. Crazy Machi: Missing a Trend is Not an Option With his success in online entrepreneurship, Huang Licheng saw another opportunity during the 2017 ICO crypto wave. In 2018, he targeted social mining tokens. Continuing his experience from 17 Media, he led the launch of Mithril (MITH), a blockchain project emphasizing “social mining,” claiming to create a “blockchain version of Instagram.” Its core mechanism involved users posting content on the decentralized social platform Lit and earning MITH tokens through interactions, rewarding creators. Mithril held a private token sale on February 21, 2018, raising $51.6 million (about 60,000 ETH at the time), accounting for 30% of the total token supply. In February 2018, 70% of these private sale tokens were unlocked at TGE, with the remaining 30% unlocked over the next three months. In February 2018, MITH tokens were listed on OKEX (now OKX), Binance, and other exchanges…