Huobi Founder Li Lin Raises $1B With Partners to Accumulate Ethereum

Huobi founder Li Lin has joined forces with some of Asia’s earliest Ethereum backers to launch a $1 billion digital asset trust aimed at accumulating Ether (ETH).

Key Takeaways:

• Huobi founder Li Lin and prominent Asian crypto investors have raised $1 billion to launch an Ether-focused digital asset trust.
• The trust includes major backers such as HongShan Capital and Avenir Capital.
• The initiative aims to capitalize on rising institutional demand for Ethereum.

Li, who also chairs Avenir Capital, is working alongside Shen Bo, co-founder of Fenbushi Capital; Xiao Feng, chairman and CEO of HashKey Group; and Cai Wensheng, the founder of photo-editing app Meitu Inc. and one of China’s most prominent crypto investors, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Huobi Founder’s $1B Ether Trust Nears Launch

The group plans to structure the Ether trust through a Nasdaq-listed shell company, providing a regulated framework for institutional participation.

The project has already raised about $1 billion, including $500 million from HongShan Capital Group (formerly Sequoia China) and $200 million from Li’s Avenir, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because discussions remain private.

An official announcement is expected within the next few weeks.

The trust is designed to offer regulated exposure to Ether and related digital assets, at a time when institutional interest in crypto is accelerating following the success of US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The move positions Li’s group to capture growing investor demand for Ethereum-based financial products as the market anticipates the approval of spot Ether ETFs in major jurisdictions.

Li, who founded Huobi in 2013, turned it into one of the world’s top exchanges before selling it to entrepreneur Justin Sun after China’s crypto ban in 2021.

He later established Avenir Capital, a Hong Kong-based investment firm that has become one of Asia’s largest holders of Bitcoin ETFs, with over $1 billion in assets under management.

The partners, Shen, Xiao, and Cai, are part of the first wave of Chinese crypto entrepreneurs who began investing in Ethereum shortly after its 2015 launch.

Shen’s Fenbushi Capital backed several early blockchain projects; Xiao’s HashKey was among the first to secure Hong Kong’s virtual asset trading license; and Cai has made multiple headline-making crypto investments through his personal fund.

Ethereum Poised for ‘Trillion-Dollar Phase’ as Institutions Flock to Quality

At the Digital Assets Summit (DAS) 2025 in London, top industry figures, including Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin and SharpLink Co-CEO Joseph Chalom, discussed Ethereum’s growing role as the foundation for institutional finance.

The panel, titled “The Path to Trillions: Ethereum’s Institutional Dominance,” explored how Ethereum’s infrastructure, staking yields, and tokenization capabilities are making it central to the next wave of global financial innovation.

Speakers highlighted key catalysts for institutional adoption, including on-chain fund issuance, interoperability, and improved regulatory clarity, that could cement Ethereum’s dominance in decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenized real-world assets.

Lubin noted that Ethereum’s evolution toward scalability and compliance is drawing renewed institutional confidence.

Chalom, a former BlackRock executive, reflected on last week’s crypto market crash, calling it “a terrible day for humans,” and blaming “insidious leverage garbage” for the turmoil.

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