Li Lin, the founder of crypto exchange Huobi, is reportedly preparing to launch a massive new fund dedicated to accumulating Ethereum (ETH). He is joining forces with some of Asia’s earliest Ethereum backers to launch a new digital-asset trust that will buy ETH tokens.
The group includes Shen Bo, the co-founder of Fenbushi Capital, along with Xiao Feng, chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HashKey Group, and Cai Wensheng, founder of Meitu inc.
The fund aims to raise up to $1 billion, according to a Bloomberg report. It would be one of the largest single capital deployments focused exclusively on accumulating ETH in the market. This move signals a bullish movement in the long-term value and utility of the Ethereum ecosystem by a veteran figure in the cryptocurrency world.
The fund’s central strategy is acquiring and holding large quantities of Ether, putting it as an “accumulator” rather than a traditional venture or trading vehicle. While details on the fund’s exact structure and timeline remain unknown, the scale of the target raise shows the growing institutional appetite for staking large bets on foundational digital assets like ETH.
Li Lin stepped down from Huobi’s management in 2022 after selling his stake to a Hong Kong-based investment firm. His return to the crypto market with a billion-dollar fund shows the sustained interest of first-generation crypto founders in shaping the industry’s future.
The announcement comes as Ether maintains its position as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with its blockchain, Ethereum, forming the core infrastructure for decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, and Web3 applications.