Don’t participate in Li Xiaolai’s project! But you must listen to Li Xiaolai’s words? How much do you know about the former father of Bitcoin?

Beware of Li Xiaolai's project! Yet, heed his advice? What do you truly know about the pioneer of Bitcoin, Li Xiaolai?

Over the years, the cryptocurrency market has had its ups and downs, undergoing significant changes. Many big shots, despite having their moments of glory, have gradually faded away after repeated setbacks, disappearing without a trace. However, Li Xiaolai manages to stay triumphant in the cryptocurrency world. Even when he’s not actively involved in the industry, the stories about him continue to circulate, and his name always causes a stir. The most recent incident involves Mixin.

Mixin hacked for approximately 200 million dollars! Li Xiaolai is being questioned: What about the users’ money?

In the early hours of September 23, 2023, Mixin’s cloud services provider’s database was attacked by hackers, resulting in the loss of some assets from the main network. The team immediately contacted Google and the SlowMist team for assistance in the investigation. After preliminary verification, the amount involved is estimated to be around 200 million dollars. Mixin’s deposit and withdrawal services have been temporarily suspended. After discussions among all nodes, it has been agreed that once the vulnerability is confirmed and fixed, these services will be reopened.

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Mixin is an underlying blockchain cross-chain protocol that positions itself as a free and fast peer-to-peer digital asset trading network. Its goal is to provide users with a more convenient and secure multi-currency wallet, safeguarding their assets.

So, what is the relationship between Li Xiaolai and Mixin? Why are people calling out to him now that Mixin is in trouble?

According to Mixin’s official website, its ICP filing subject is Feynman (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. According to Tianyancha’s information, the company was established in 2014, with Feng Xiaodong as its legal representative and the current shareholders being Feng Xiaodong (94%), Li Xiaolai (5%), and Tieling (1%). Worth mentioning is that prior to this, Luo Yonghao also held shares in this company, owning 4% until February 2016 before exiting as a shareholder.

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As for Mixin itself, it is a public chain project that was launched at the end of 2017, focusing on multi-currency payments. In 2017, Mixin’s token $Xin raised 8 million EOS, which was worth approximately 88 million RMB at that time. Mixin remained relatively unknown for the first two years after its launch until Li Xiaolai personally came out to support it, which is why people assume that Li Xiaolai has a strong connection to Mixin. Hence, when news spread about the theft of Mixin, many users flocked to Li Xiaolai’s Weibo to ask, “What about the users’ money?”, bringing Li Xiaolai’s name back into the spotlight.

The Legendary Journey of the Master: From New Oriental Lecturer to Bitcoin Billionaire.

I’m sure many of you are already familiar with Li Xiaolai’s fame, which initially came from his role as a lecturer at New Oriental.

During his time teaching at New Oriental, Li Xiaolai gained a large following of students with his witty and humorous teaching style. He became one of the most popular lecturers at New Oriental, a real hotshot. However, the title of “gold medal lecturer” clearly did not satisfy Li Xiaolai’s ambitions. He always desired a bigger stage and a more successful career, so after 8 years as a lecturer, he chose to leave New Oriental and start his own business.

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To talk about Li Xiaolai’s entrepreneurial story, we cannot neglect the mention of another well-known figure, Luo Yonghao. Li Xiaolai and Luo Yonghao are childhood friends, and it was through Luo Yonghao’s recommendation that Li Xiaolai got the opportunity to come to New Oriental.

In 2008, Luo Yonghao left New Oriental to start his own business, 2 years before Li Xiaolai. During those years, Luo Yonghao not only created the hugely popular Niubowang with over a million daily active users, but also established his own English training school in Beijing.

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Perhaps because they are childhood friends, Li Xiaolai’s every effort seemed to be anchored to Luo Yonghao. Being friends who grew up together, he naturally didn’t think he was any less capable than Luo Yonghao, so he started his own company and embarked on his entrepreneurial journey. Li Xiaolai’s early entrepreneurial ventures were not smooth, but a turning point quickly appeared in 2011.

In 2011, Li Xiaolai first heard about Bitcoin when its value had just surpassed $1. Thanks to his English skills and network, he gained access to a wealth of information related to Bitcoin. After six months of investigation and analysis, Li Xiaolai was convinced that Bitcoin was the future. He was ahead of others in realizing the significance of Bitcoin.

Bullish on the future development of Bitcoin, Li Xiaolai quickly took action. That year, he spent $13,100 to buy 2,100 Bitcoins, at a price of around $6 per Bitcoin. This investment yielded double the returns in the following year.

With his growing confidence in the future appreciation of Bitcoin, Li Xiaolai was not satisfied with just buying Bitcoin on the secondary market. He sold his assets to purchase 46 computers for mining, in order to acquire more Bitcoins. Together with his partner Zhu Feng, they converted a large container into a mining room in Baozhou, Hebei. However, the computers at that time were far less advanced than today’s mining machines, and their mining efficiency was very low, far inferior to directly buying Bitcoin.

Just at this moment, the Bitcoin market encountered setbacks and entered a bear market, with the price of each Bitcoin dropping from over $20 to $1-2. For others, this may not be good news, but for Li Xiaolai, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As Warren Buffett famously said, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” With Bitcoin in a bear market, Li Xiaolai became the greediest person in the market, aggressively buying Bitcoin at its lowest point, accumulating a large amount of Bitcoin. And this became his most important wealth accumulation.

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In 2013, Li Xiaolai participated in a CCTV financial program called “Economic Half-hour”. During the conversation, Li Xiaolai revealed that he held over 100,000 Bitcoins. Let’s do some calculations: at that time, the price of each Bitcoin was approximately $1,000. If what Li Xiaolai said is true, it means that as early as 2013, he had a net worth of $100 million. It was also because of the disclosure of his holdings of 100,000 Bitcoins that Li Xiaolai quickly became a celebrity in the cryptocurrency community, earning the title of “Bitcoin’s richest person,” and successfully achieving financial freedom.

Don’t participate in Li Xiaolai’s projects! But you must listen to the “King of Quotes” Li Xiaolai’s words?

Li Xiaolai, who held 100,000 Bitcoins, quickly became a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency community and was highly sought after. He frequently participated in events, telling his story with Bitcoin, and promoting and hyping Bitcoin. It was around this time that Li Xiaolai revealed his sickle and put the “business” of harvesting leeks on the agenda.

Initially, Li Xiaolai had two ways of harvesting leeks.

One was targeting retail investors. Li Xiaolai would use his influence and popularity to “brainwash” retail investors, making them believe in the idea that “Bitcoin will inevitably bring wealth” and using their funds to drive up the price of Bitcoin. At the same time, he also sold books and offered courses related to “wealth cultivation,” capitalizing on the trend of paid knowledge.

The other was targeting high-net-worth individuals with certain assets. Li Xiaolai would use his reputation and marketing techniques to establish high-barrier communities, attracting high-value customers. For example, Li Xiaolai once created a highly exclusive blockchain private equity club, which required holding more than 600 coins to join. However, it was revealed that this community was established with a similar system to MLM (multi-level marketing) in order to encourage club members to recruit others to buy Bitcoin.

In June 2017, Li Xiaolai’s intention to wield the scythe and harvest the leeks became increasingly evident. He participated in a blockchain operating system project and raised 185 million dollars in just 5 days. One month later, the project’s market value surpassed 5 billion dollars.

An intangible virtual currency, yet able to mobilize such a massive amount of funds. From any perspective, this is an extremely risky and flawed situation.

Sure enough, on September 4, 2017, seven major departments including the People’s Bank of China, the Cyber Administration, the Banking Regulatory Commission, and the Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued a notice regarding the prevention of token issuance financing risks. It classified token issuance financing, including ICOs, as illegal financing activities. In other words, Li Xiaolai’s financing activities were labeled as “illegal financing.”

Two days later, Li Xiaolai published an article online titled “Li Xiaolai admits mistakes: Investment is not just a personal matter, shouldn’t cause trouble to society.” In the article, Li Xiaolai states, “I was really wrong, negligence resulting in killing is still killing, and one still needs to take responsibility for it.” Li Xiaolai also promised to repay the investors’ tokens according to regulations and shut down 15 token projects still in operation.

In addition to his projects gaining popularity, Li Xiaolai himself is also a “quote generator.” Those words he casually said in those years now frequently circulate. For example, “you must open your own exchange,” “Bit Gold, Lite Silver, this phrase encapsulates all the value of Litecoin,” “the consensus of idiots is still consensus, and we must accept this fact,” and so on. Even though many years have passed, some of these assertions still hold true today.

As the recognized “first generation tycoon” in the cryptocurrency industry, Li Xiaolai’s success has a highly distinct imprint of the era. To some extent, he is the person who established order in the wilderness era of the cryptocurrency industry. Coming from a humble background naturally has its limitations, but it hasn’t prevented him from reaching the top and achieving financial freedom because he is one of the few intelligent and courageous gold seekers of that era.

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