High-Leverage Grinder: How a "Gambling God" Repeatedly Reborn from Losses

Last night, the crypto trading market staged a thrilling chain of liquidations. Renowned investor Huang Licheng experienced 10 consecutive liquidations within just a few hours, with his account balance plummeting from $1.3 million to just over $50,000—evaporating a full $1.25 million.

This is not the first time. As early as October 2024, he endured an even more brutal liquidation: a $79 million ETH long position was forcibly closed, turning a profit of $44.5 million into a loss of $10 million in a single day, with net losses exceeding $54.5 million.

However, after each total loss, Huang Licheng quickly injects new margin, as if high leverage’s crushing machine can’t really hurt him. In December, he added $19,980; in November, $275,000; a few days ago, another $254,700… While media reports focus on his massive losses, he leisurely posts pool photos on Instagram.

This raises a question in everyone’s mind: After repeatedly enduring liquidation of tens of millions of dollars, where does his money keep coming from?

The Deep Secrets Beneath the Crushing Machine

To understand how Huang Licheng survives in this high-leverage crushing machine, we must first see how crazy his trading style is.

He is keen on extreme operations on certain decentralized derivatives platforms, frequently using 15x to 25x ultra-high leverage for ETH longs. This means that a market decline of just 4% to 6% can instantly wipe out his margin. Such leverage levels turn the market into a relentless shredder—liquidation mechanisms on exchanges execute automatically at millisecond speeds, leaving traders “no escape.”

But what’s truly outrageous is that after each huge loss, he can deploy new margin immediately, even re-establishing positions worth tens of millions of dollars. This proves a startling fact: these losses are not from depleting his overall net worth, but are extracted from a bottomless liquidity pool.

So, how is this liquidity pool built?

The Wealth Code of a Three-Layer Capital Structure

Layer One: The Solid Foundation of Traditional Tech

Huang Licheng was not originally a crypto speculator. He first became a successful tech entrepreneur. In 2015, he co-founded 17Media (later renamed 17LIVE), which quickly grew into Asia’s top live entertainment platform. In 2023, the company successfully went public in Singapore.

The pivotal moment came in November 2020. Huang Licheng announced his resignation from the 17LIVE board, and the company repurchased his shares at a high price. This large cash flow from a mature enterprise coincided with the crypto bull market’s explosion. This “anchoring capital” laid a solid foundation for his subsequent high-risk derivatives trading.

Layer Two: Capital Accumulation from Early Crypto Projects

Beyond traditional tech, Huang Licheng also delved into early crypto ecosystems, accumulating substantial, albeit controversial, crypto capital.

He founded Mithril, a platform claiming to be a decentralized social media. Although the project was ultimately criticized as “just a concept” due to rough product and lack of real users, its token price plummeted over 99%. Yet, in the early stages, the token issuer indeed “made a big chunk of money.” This reflects the typical chaos of digital asset issuance in 2017-2018: regardless of whether projects succeed, founders can cash out early through initial token offerings.

He also participated in founding decentralized lending protocols. Although these projects later suffered major security breaches causing huge losses to investors, for Huang Licheng himself, early involvement brought tangible capital accumulation.

Layer Three: Liquidity Extraction from High-Value Assets

More creatively, Huang Licheng converts blue-chip NFTs into sustainable cash flows. He is a renowned collector of top NFT series, with the value of NFTs held in related wallets once exceeding $9.5 million.

But he is not just a collector; he employs advanced financial strategies to generate liquidity continuously:

Within 48 hours, he sold over 1,000 NFTs, creating “one of the largest sales in history,” instantly converting high-value assets into stablecoins and ETH. He actively participates in lending and liquidity mining on certain NFT platforms, once being the largest lender with 58 loans totaling 1,180 ETH. He also liquidates related airdropped tokens on a large scale, selling 13 high-value NFTs within a week and transferring over 1.49 million airdropped tokens to exchanges.

This high-frequency, large-scale asset conversion aims to maximize airdrop rewards and efficiently turn digital assets into highly liquid ETH or stablecoins, continuously fueling derivatives trading ammunition.

Even with realized losses of about $4.2 million during mining, these losses are likely offset by gains from large-scale airdrops and asset liquidations.

The Never-Ending Capital Shredder

Huang Licheng’s ability to immediately reopen aggressive positions after suffering tens of millions in liquidations is backed by a vast diversified capital structure:

• Large fiat liquidity from traditional tech exits;
• Long-term accumulation of early crypto-native capital;
• Continuous conversion of blue-chip NFT assets into ETH and stablecoins through sales, airdrops, and lending.

Based on publicly confirmed total liquidations and losses (over $54.5 million), and his repeated ability to inject tens of thousands of dollars in margin immediately after liquidations, the unallocated liquidity reserve is conservatively estimated to be over $100 million.

Even more noteworthy, Huang Licheng’s strategy continues to evolve. By the end of 2024, he launched a new token project on a certain public chain, attempting to raise $5 million in liquidity, quickly attracting investors claiming a capital of up to $125 million.

This creates a cycle: traditional exit → early crypto projects → NFT mining → derivatives trading → new token issuance. When a liquidity resource is locked or exhausted by high-risk positions, he immediately initiates a new community token project to refresh his capital reserves. Like an endless shredder, replacing worn parts to keep running.

A Warning to Ordinary Investors

Huang Licheng’s case indeed demonstrates the power of a diversified capital structure, but for ordinary investors, it’s more of a warning than a model.

High-leverage trading is extremely risky. 25x leverage means a mere 4% market decline can wipe out your entire principal. Even with substantial capital like Huang Licheng’s, he suffered tens of millions of dollars in losses in this shredder-like liquidation mechanism.

Capital depth determines risk tolerance. Huang Licheng can replenish margins immediately after huge losses because he has multiple capital sources and deep liquidity reserves. Ordinary investors usually lack such conditions; a single liquidation could be fatal.

The platform’s efficient liquidation mechanism itself is a structural risk amplifier. Millisecond execution speeds eliminate manual hedging possibilities, leaving traders with nowhere to escape market shocks.

Huang Licheng’s continued reliance on extreme leverage and constant launching of new projects indicates his financial activities will keep generating significant market volatility. His capital model proves how traditional tech wealth and crypto-native wealth can combine efficiently, but ultimately, the question is:

In this market, do you want to be the one creating liquidity, or the one providing it?

Survival is always more important than getting rich quickly.