Spotlight → Shadows
Thirty years ago he owned the stage lights.
In 1990s Taipei, L.A. Boyz’s baggy jeans and bilingual rap cracked open Mandopop; front-man Jeff Huang was the first to bring American hip-hop to Chinese-speaking crowds.
Thirty years later the same man, now crypto’s “Big Bro Machi,” sat in the glow of a different screen—Hyperliquid’s P&L terminal—watching US $60 million evaporate until only US $1,718 remained.
He left Twitter a parting shrug: “Was fun while it lasted.”

From Rap Stage to Start-up Roller-Coaster
Born 1972, Yunlin → California at two.
1991: forms dance crew Funky Asian Buddy with brother Stanley Huang and cousin; rebrands as L.A. Boyz, ships the sound of South-Central to Taipei.
1997: group disbands as ballads conquer the charts. Huang pivots—record label Machi Entertainment (2003), then 17 Media (2015), a mobile-live app that hit millions before Twitch-clones existed in Asia.
Valuation: billions of NT$; backers: Wang Sicong, LeSports.
2018: IPO scrapped at the opening bell; Huang cashes out gradually, keeps a founder’s taste for early exits and early hype.

Enter Crypto: The First Token Swing
2017 ICO mania.
2018: Mithril (“mine coins by posting”) raises US $51.6 M in private sale, lists on Binance, peaks, then dumps 80 % in three months while team wallets unload 89 % of supply.
MITH > –99 %; nickname born: “the sickle”.

DeFi: Building Houses for Hackers
2020: forks Compound → Cream Finance.
TVL tops US $1 B.
2021: five exploits, US $200 M lost (flash-loans, re-entry bugs, oracle games).
Hands keys to Yearn’s Andre Cronje and exits operational role.
Reputation cemented: “Big Bro builds, hackers feast.”

NFT Whale → Exit Liquidity
2021: mints Bored Apes at 0.08 ETH, gifts one to Jay Chou, amasses 102 MAYC, 55 BAYC, 1.51 M APE.
2023: Blur season 2 points race. Huang tops leaderboard, bids 71 BAYC + 77 CryptoPunks near top, market nosedives, firesales 1,000+ JPEGs.
Damage: > 5,000 ETH (~US $9 M then).
April 2023: tweets “I’m out of NFTs.” Wallet still full of illiquid “corpses”.

2024 Meme Coin Curtain Call
Solana summer: launches Boba Oppa, dog-themed ticker $BOBAOPPA.
24 h presale: 200,000 SOL (≈ US $40 M).
List-day: –70 %.
Eventually joins the long tail of zeroes.

Hyperliquid: Five Months from Hero to Zero
Chapter 1: June–August 2025 – Euphoria
Long HYPE, profit US $6.5 M.
Long PUMP, lose US $10 M.
Net mid-August: locks in US $33.8 M, flips short ETH too early, gives half back.

Chapter 2: September – The Summit
Cuts leverage to 15×, scalps ASTER, equity peaks US $44.8 M.
Adds US $4.72 M margin as market turns.
Total position size: US $176 M; buffer razor-thin.

Chapter 3: October – Death Spiral
10/9: closes alts, –US $21.5 M, slips into red.
Loop begins: dip → top-up → liquidation → re-open.
Ten cycles in three weeks; US $14.5 M gone by Halloween.

Chapter 4: November – Lights Out
03 Nov 25× ETH long wiped, –US $15 M.
04 Nov: balance US $16,771 → opens 100-ETH 25× long.
05 Nov 02:00 UTC: liquidated.
Final stub: US $1,718.
From US $60 M to coffee money in 47 days.

Sisyphus in Chains
The same session bankrupted fellow “inside whales”:

• 14-win 100 %-accuracy trader: +US $25 M → –US $30 M.

• Hyperliquid celebrity James Wayne: +US $43 M → zero → KOL life, ref-code grinding for the next roll.
  They all still trade—smaller size, same leverage—pushing the same rock uphill.

Coda: Acceleration = Annihilation
Jeff Huang is crypto’s living fossil: every cycle, every slot machine, one seat saved for him.
White-papers once needed teams; now a contract address and a tweet raise US $400 M.
Attention is the new equity; balance digits are casino chips.
The irony: there will always be another Big Bro Machi, and thousands begging to be him.

Spotlight → Shadows
Thirty years ago he owned the stage lights.
In 1990s Taipei, L.A. Boyz’s baggy jeans and bilingual rap cracked open Mandopop; front-man Jeff Huang was the first to bring American hip-hop to Chinese-speaking crowds.
Thirty years later the same man, now crypto’s “Big Bro Machi,” sat in the glow of a different screen—Hyperliquid’s P&L terminal—watching US $60 million evaporate until only US $1,718 remained.
He left Twitter a parting shrug: “Was fun while it lasted.”

From Rap Stage to Start-up Roller-Coaster
Born 1972, Yunlin → California at two.
1991: forms dance crew Funky Asian Buddy with brother Stanley Huang and cousin; rebrands as L.A. Boyz, ships the sound of South-Central to Taipei.
1997: group disbands as ballads conquer the charts. Huang pivots—record label Machi Entertainment (2003), then 17 Media (2015), a mobile-live app that hit millions before Twitch-clones existed in Asia.
Valuation: billions of NT$; backers: Wang Sicong, LeSports.
2018: IPO scrapped at the opening bell; Huang cashes out gradually, keeps a founder’s taste for early exits and early hype.

Enter Crypto: The First Token Swing
2017 ICO mania.
2018: Mithril (“mine coins by posting”) raises US $51.6 M in private sale, lists on Binance, peaks, then dumps 80 % in three months while team wallets unload 89 % of supply.
MITH > –99 %; nickname born: “the sickle”.

DeFi: Building Houses for Hackers
2020: forks Compound → Cream Finance.
TVL tops US $1 B.
2021: five exploits, US $200 M lost (flash-loans, re-entry bugs, oracle games).
Hands keys to Yearn’s Andre Cronje and exits operational role.
Reputation cemented: “Big Bro builds, hackers feast.”

NFT Whale → Exit Liquidity
2021: mints Bored Apes at 0.08 ETH, gifts one to Jay Chou, amasses 102 MAYC, 55 BAYC, 1.51 M APE.
2023: Blur season 2 points race. Huang tops leaderboard, bids 71 BAYC + 77 CryptoPunks near top, market nosedives, firesales 1,000+ JPEGs.
Damage: > 5,000 ETH (~US $9 M then).
April 2023: tweets “I’m out of NFTs.” Wallet still full of illiquid “corpses”.

2024 Meme Coin Curtain Call
Solana summer: launches Boba Oppa, dog-themed ticker $BOBAOPPA.
24 h presale: 200,000 SOL (≈ US $40 M).
List-day: –70 %.
Eventually joins the long tail of zeroes.

Hyperliquid: Five Months from Hero to Zero
Chapter 1: June–August 2025 – Euphoria
Long HYPE, profit US $6.5 M.
Long PUMP, lose US $10 M.
Net mid-August: locks in US $33.8 M, flips short ETH too early, gives half back.

Chapter 2: September – The Summit
Cuts leverage to 15×, scalps ASTER, equity peaks US $44.8 M.
Adds US $4.72 M margin as market turns.
Total position size: US $176 M; buffer razor-thin.

Chapter 3: October – Death Spiral
10/9: closes alts, –US $21.5 M, slips into red.
Loop begins: dip → top-up → liquidation → re-open.
Ten cycles in three weeks; US $14.5 M gone by Halloween.

Chapter 4: November – Lights Out
03 Nov 25× ETH long wiped, –US $15 M.
04 Nov: balance US $16,771 → opens 100-ETH 25× long.
05 Nov 02:00 UTC: liquidated.
Final stub: US $1,718.
From US $60 M to coffee money in 47 days.

Sisyphus in Chains
The same session bankrupted fellow “inside whales”:

• 14-win 100 %-accuracy trader: +US $25 M → –US $30 M.

• Hyperliquid celebrity James Wayne: +US $43 M → zero → KOL life, ref-code grinding for the next roll.
  They all still trade—smaller size, same leverage—pushing the same rock uphill.

Coda: Acceleration = Annihilation
Jeff Huang is crypto’s living fossil: every cycle, every slot machine, one seat saved for him.
White-papers once needed teams; now a contract address and a tweet raise US $400 M.
Attention is the new equity; balance digits are casino chips.
The irony: there will always be another Big Bro Machi, and thousands begging to be him.