Machi Big Brother is Jeffrey Huang, a Taiwanese-American rapper turned tech founder turned crypto whale, best known today for the most publicly tracked leveraged trading account in the industry. He was a hip-hop star in Taiwan in the 1990s, co-founded a streaming company that nearly went public in New York, launched a string of crypto projects, became one of the largest Bored Ape holders on earth, sued ZachXBT, and then spent 2026 getting liquidated on Hyperliquid in front of a live audience.
Few people in crypto have packed more lives into one X handle. This profile covers all of them, including a few run-ins of my own from the NFT days. It is the second post in our DeFi and crypto Twitter “who is” series, and it follows a profile of the man who sued him, or rather the man he sued.
Who is Machi Big Brother?
Jeffrey Huang was born in Taiwan in 1973 and grew up in Los Angeles. At 18 he formed L.A. Boyz with his brother Stan and cousin Steven Lin, a Taiwanese-American pop and rap trio that became a genuine phenomenon in Taiwan in the early 1990s. They brought West Coast hip-hop to a market that had never heard it, sold a lot of records, and made Huang famous in Asia before he could legally drink in the States.
After the group split he started Machi, a hip-hop crew in 2003, and later Machi Entertainment, one of the biggest rap labels in Asia under Warner Music Taiwan. The “Machi” in his handle is that label, and the “Big Brother” is literal. In Taiwan he is simply known as Machi Dage, which translates to exactly that.
The pivot to tech came in 2015. He co-founded 17 Media, a live-streaming app that grew into one of Asia’s biggest. The parent company, M17, filed for a $115 million IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018 and then pulled it on listing day after settlement problems with investors. By then he was already deep into crypto, and that is where the Machi Big Brother name took over.
The crypto years: Mithril, Formosa and Cream
Huang entered crypto in 2017 with Mithril, a social platform that rewarded users with its MITH token. It raised money, listed on Binance, and faded like most 2017 projects. Next came Formosa Financial in 2018, a treasury management platform that collapsed. After that came Machi X for IP rights, then Cream Finance in 2020, a Compound fork that briefly mattered in DeFi summer. Cream was hacked three times in 2021 for well over $100 million combined. Method Man rapped its theme song. That is a real sentence.
The pattern continued through Swag Finance, Wifey Finance, Mithril Cash, Typhoon Cash and Squid DAO. Each one launched into whatever trend was hot that month. None of them are around today.
I will say this carefully, because he has sued over it before. I would not call these rugs. What I will say is that he has a long history of starting something in every new trend, and it usually does not end well for the people who bought in. That is the pattern, and it is all public record. Draw your own conclusions.
The ZachXBT article and the lawsuit
In June 2022 ZachXBT published a long piece titled “22,000 ETH Embezzled and Over Ten Projects Failed: The Story of Machi Big Brother.” It alleged that Huang and a partner had each taken 22,000 ETH from Formosa Financial, and it walked through every failed project since. It was the most detailed takedown of any crypto figure at the time.
Huang’s response came a year later. In June 2023 he sued ZachXBT for defamation in the US and doxxed him in the process. Crypto Twitter sent over $1 million to Zach’s legal defense fund in three days. Two months later Huang dropped the case after Zach amended the article, and the title was softened to “A Story of Machi Big Brother.” Huang said pursuing legal action “was not the right path.” Zach returned the unused donations.
We covered the investigator’s side of that fight in our ZachXBT profile. From Huang’s side, the lawsuit was the moment his reputation as a whale got permanently tangled with his reputation as a founder. Everything he has done since gets read through that article.
The ape whale era
For a couple of years, Machi was the most important bidder in the NFT market. He held hundreds of Bored Apes and Mutant Apes at the peak, plus Punks, Azukis and whatever else was trending, and he was by far the loudest ape holder on the timeline. When he moved, floors moved.
He was also famous for one specific habit, and this is where my own story comes in. Machi dumped into bids. Not into listings, into bids. When he wanted out of a position, he would accept the top collection offers on dozens of apes and mutants in one go, often far below floor, because speed mattered more to him than price. Every NFT trader in 2022 knew this.
So I always kept bids out on his rare apes and mutants. Nothing fancy, just standing offers on the traits he held. A few times he went on a dump spree, my bids filled, and I relisted at floor within minutes. Several ETH in profit, before my coffee was cold, more than once. If you were patient and knew his wallets, Machi was the most generous counterparty in the market.
Then there was the gold ape. Huang was the driving force behind getting apes into museums. In 2022 he proposed that ApeCoin DAO buy up hundreds of apes and mutants and donate them to major museums for exhibition, and the DAO backed the push. I knew any serious museum set needed a gold fur ape, and I happened to own one. I offered him mine more than once. They bought a different gold ape instead, for roughly 150 ETH more than mine was listed at. To this day I wonder why. Oh well. It was the NFT market, where logic was optional.
He eventually turned on the DAO, called it corrupt during the marketplace debate, and sold down his apes. In June 2023 he lost a large amount of ETH trying to farm tokens with Bored Apes as collateral, one of the first signs that the trading style we all know now had arrived.
The Hyperliquid era
If the NFT years made him a whale, Hyperliquid made him a spectacle. His wallet is public, every position is visible, and the whole cycle plays out in front of thousands of people. Deposit, leverage, liquidation, repeat.
The numbers are hard to believe. After the October 2025 crash, on-chain trackers counted more than 145 liquidations on his account in a few months. By March 2026 he had lost around $75 million in six months, mostly on 25x ETH longs that he kept adding to on the way down. In May 2026 Arkham reported his balance had fallen to roughly $141,000. In June he was back, running over a thousand ETH on about $52,000 of margin.
Then came the comeback. Over four months he turned $56,000 into $12.25 million, and for a while he looked like the best trader on the platform. On October 15, 2026, that account got fully liquidated down to about $21,800 as ETH dropped toward $2,380. He reopened a 25x ETH long seven minutes later. That one earned him the title “King of Liquidations,” and the name stuck.
Along the way he launched a MACHI token on Blast, which stopped trading entirely before the chain itself wound down. We covered the chain’s end in our Blast shutdown post. In September 2026 he was promoting a Solana meme called Season 3, riding the Hyperliquid airdrop narrative. New trend, new token. The pattern never changes, only the chain.
For what it is worth, the venue has held up fine through all of it. Our Hyperliquid review explains how the liquidation engine works and why the exchange earns on every one of his blowups.
Should beginners follow Machi Big Brother?
Follow him as a case study, not as a signal. His account is the best free lesson in why leverage kills, because every mistake is visible in real time. Doubling down on a losing long, sizing up after a win, no stop, no plan, back in minutes after a wipeout. Our trading fundamentals series teaches the opposite of everything his wallet shows.
Do not copy trade him. Plenty of people did during the $12 million run, and they got the same October 15 that he did. Being able to turn $56,000 into $12 million means nothing if you turn it back into $21,000 the same quarter.
And be careful with anything he launches. He is early to every trend, and early does not mean good. His track record on tokens is public and it is long.
My Take
I have made money off Machi more than once, and I say that with some affection. In the NFT days he was the best counterparty on the market if you were patient. He dumped into bids, I kept bids out, and the rest was timing. He also kept the ape market exciting for two years, for better and worse.
The trading era is harder to enjoy. Watching someone lose $75 million in six months, rebuild to $12 million, and lose it again in a day is not entertainment. It is a textbook. He has become the most famous example of why I take profits early and move stops to break even, which I explain in the fundamentals series above. I never traded with a fraction of his size, and I plan to keep it that way.
What stays with me is the pattern. Rap group, label, streaming app, token, token, token, apes, token, 25x longs. He finds the new wave before almost anyone, puts real money in, and rides it until it breaks. Sometimes it breaks on him, as it did on Hyperliquid. Often it broke on the people who followed him in. I will leave it there.
Keep This Content Free
Profiles like this take a day of digging through ten years of launches, lawsuits and liquidations. If it was worth reading, trade on OKX or Bybit through our links. It costs you nothing and keeps this series running. And whatever you do, size smaller than Machi.
Final Words
Machi Big Brother is crypto’s great survivor. Pop star, label boss, tech founder, DeFi founder, ape whale, Hyperliquid legend, and somehow he has outlasted every project he ever launched. Expect another position before this post is a week old.
As a second chapter in this series, he fits perfectly.We opened with ZachXBT, the investigator who wrote the article Huang sued over. Few rivalries in crypto say more about the industry: one man exposing patterns, the other one living them.
FAQ
Who is Machi Big Brother?
Machi Big Brother is Jeffrey Huang, a Taiwanese-American musician and entrepreneur. He was a member of the 1990s hip-hop group L.A. Boyz, co-founded 17 Media, launched Cream Finance and other crypto projects, and is known today as a high-leverage trader on Hyperliquid.
Why is Machi Big Brother called the King of Liquidations?
Because his public Hyperliquid wallet has been liquidated more than 145 times since late 2025, with roughly $75 million in losses over one six-month stretch and a full wipeout from $12.25 million to about $21,800 on October 15, 2026.
Did Machi Big Brother sue ZachXBT?
Yes. He filed a defamation suit in June 2023 over a 2022 article alleging 22,000 ETH went missing from Formosa Financial. He dropped the case in August 2023 after ZachXBT amended the article.
What crypto projects did Machi Big Brother start?
Mithril, Formosa Financial, Machi X, Cream Finance, Swag Finance, Mithril Cash and several others. Most are inactive today. Cream Finance was hacked three times in 2021.
Is Machi Big Brother still a Bored Ape whale?
No. He was one of the largest BAYC and MAYC holders in 2021 and 2022 but sold most of his collection down, often by dumping into collection bids.
Can I track Machi Big Brother’s trades?
Yes. His Hyperliquid wallet is public and trackers like Arkham and Lookonchain report his positions and liquidations in real time.
