The Untold Capital Engine Behind Maji's Extreme Trading: A $100M+ Liquidity Mystery

When a trader’s account balance crashes from $1.3 million to $53,178 in a single night—wiped out by 10 consecutive liquidations on Hyperliquid—most would assume financial ruin. Yet for Huang Licheng, the infamous “Maji Big Brother,” this was merely another chapter in an extraordinary pattern: immediate fund replenishment, followed by re-entry into the high-stakes derivatives game.

Last night’s catastrophic liquidation cascade wasn’t an anomaly. In October 2024, Maji experienced an even more dramatic reversal: a $79 million ETH long position liquidated, flipping a $44.5 million profit into a $10 million loss—a total swing exceeding $54.5 million. Yet within days, he deposited fresh capital and resumed his extreme leverage bets. This pattern repeats relentlessly: $199,800 injected in December, $275,000 in November, $254,700 mere days before the latest collapse.

The burning question haunts the crypto community: after suffering liquidations totaling tens of millions of dollars, where does Maji’s seemingly inexhaustible capital originate?

Understanding the Leverage Architecture

To grasp how this capital machine functions, one must first understand Maji’s trading methodology. He operates primarily on Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives platform known for “millisecond-level matching speed.” This technical efficiency proves double-edged: while it enables rapid execution, it also creates structural liquidation traps during volatile market swings.

Maji consistently employs extreme leverage ranging from 15x to 25x on ETH positions. At 25x leverage, a mere 4% market decline completely obliterates collateral. The December liquidation cascade represented this leverage system functioning precisely as designed—mechanically, relentlessly, and with zero mercy.

This extreme trading style is sustainable only for traders with access to deep, diversified capital reserves. The question becomes: what kind of wealth infrastructure supports such reckless positioning?

Layer One: Traditional Tech Exit Capital

Maji’s financial foundation predates his crypto notoriety. Before becoming a derivatives market fixture, he built substantial wealth in conventional technology. In 2015, he co-founded 17 Media (later rebranded as M17 Entertainment/17LIVE), which evolved into Asia’s leading live entertainment platform. The company attempted a New York IPO in 2018—unsuccessful—but successfully listed on Singapore’s exchange in 2023.

The critical financial event occurred in November 2020, when Maji announced his resignation from 17LIVE’s board while the company simultaneously repurchased his shareholdings. This timing proved fortuitous: the cash proceeds arrived precisely as the 2021 crypto bull market commenced. The $100+ million liquid position he maintains today likely traces its roots to this traditional tech exit, providing “anchored capital” capable of absorbing repeated tens-of-millions-dollar losses without threatening overall solvency.

Layer Two: Native Crypto Asset Accumulation

Beyond traditional wealth, Maji accumulated significant crypto-native capital during early digital asset issuance eras. His involvement with Mithril (MITH), a decentralized social media platform he founded, exemplifies this period. Though the project was later characterized as “concept-heavy, product-weak, user-absent,” early token generation events produced substantial founder wealth. MITH subsequently declined over 99% post-market correction and delisted in 2022—a familiar pattern of founder wealth extraction preceding project failure.

Similarly, Maji co-founded Cream Finance (CREAM), a decentralized lending protocol that experienced catastrophic security incidents in 2021, including a $34 million exploit and $130 million flash loan attack. These early projects, regardless of their eventual outcomes, generated significant liquid assets during the 2017-2018 ICO boom when speculative capital flowed indiscriminately.

Layer Three: Strategic NFT Liquidation Architecture

The most sophisticated component of Maji’s capital engine involves NFT assets deployed as financial liquidity mechanisms rather than simple collectibles. As a recognized collector of top-tier series including Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), his machibigbrother.eth-connected Ethereum wallet held NFTs valued exceeding $9.5 million as of mid-2023.

However, his strategy transcends basic collecting. It represents advanced financial engineering focused on maximum liquidity extraction:

Mass Liquidation Events: In February 2023, Maji executed what market observers termed “one of the largest NFT sell-offs in history”—disposing of 1,010 NFTs within 48 hours.

Airdrop Monetization: August 2022 witnessed the sale of 13 MAYC NFTs (approximately $350,000 value) combined with transfer of 1,496,600 ApeCoin to major exchanges—converting illiquid assets into stablecoins for margin deployment.

NFT Collateralized Lending: Through the Blur Blend platform, Maji became the largest lender at certain points, deploying 58 loans totaling 1,180 ETH. This captured Blur token airdrops while generating additional liquidity.

These high-frequency, large-scale transactions maximize yield farming rewards and continuously convert blue-chip digital assets into highly liquid ETH and stablecoins—perpetually refreshing his derivatives trading reserves. Notably, Maji incurred approximately 2,400 ETH losses ($4.2 million) during Blur mining operations, yet offset these through massive airdrop accumulation and other asset conversions.

The Perpetual Recycling Mechanism

Maji’s capacity to absorb sequential multi-million-dollar liquidations and immediately resume aggressive positioning emerges from a sophisticated, layered capital structure:

• Fiat-denominated reserves from traditional tech share liquidation
• Crypto-native assets accumulated during early token issuance periods
• Continuous NFT conversion mechanisms transforming high-value digital holdings into trading margin

The observable liquidation history (exceeding $54.5 million in documented reversals) combined with his demonstrated ability to inject hundreds of thousands immediately post-liquidation suggests conservative estimates place his accessible liquid reserves above $100 million. Even after 10 consecutive liquidations reducing his account to $53,178, his Instagram posting—“California Love” from a poolside location amid widespread loss reporting—reflects the absence of existential solvency threats.

Notably, Maji extends his capital generation beyond asset recycling. Late 2024 witnessed his launch of MACHI token on the Blast blockchain, structured to raise $5 million initial liquidity while attracting investors with declared capital commitments reaching $125 million.

This represents the complete wealth cycle: traditional exit → early crypto projects → NFT farming → derivatives trading → new token project launches. Each component feeds the next, creating a self-refreshing capital extraction and redeployment system.

Critical Lessons for Ordinary Market Participants

Maji’s on-chain activities serve as important market barometer precisely because they remain fully transparent yet remain inaccessible as trading templates for retail participants.

First: High-leverage derivatives concentrate catastrophic risk. 25x leverage necessitates merely 4% adverse price movement to eliminate principal entirely. Even capital-abundant traders suffer tens of millions in losses employing such methodologies.

Second: Capital depth fundamentally determines risk tolerance divergence. Maji’s ability to replenish margin after massive losses stems directly from diversified capital sources and extraordinary liquidity reserves—conditions absent for the vast majority of market participants. Single liquidation events frequently prove terminal for retail capital.

Third: Technological efficiency paradoxically amplifies structural risk. Hyperliquid’s millisecond-level matching speed eliminates manual risk hedging opportunities during market shocks, transforming platform design itself into a liquidation acceleration mechanism.

Maji’s continued reliance on extreme leverage and constant new token project launches guarantee continued market volatility generation. His capital model demonstrates efficient wealth combination across traditional and crypto domains supporting the market’s most aggressive trading styles.

For every participant, the foundational question remains: Are you building capital for liquidity creation, or inadvertently providing liquidity for others? Market survival consistently supersedes wealth acceleration as the primary objective.