Huobi founder raises $1B as part of Ether trust strategy: Report

Li Lin, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi and chair of investment company Avenir Capital, has reportedly raised about $1 billion as part of a strategy to invest in Ether.

According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, Li has partnered with Fenbushi Capital co-founder Shen Bo, HashKey Group CEO Xiao Feng, and Meitu founder Cai Wensheng to launch an Ether accumulation strategy through a Nasdaq-listed shell company. The project raised $1 billion, which included $500 million from HongShan Capital Group and $200 million from Avenir.

With the support of the Ether (ETH) backers, the group plans to announce the launch of the trust in two to three weeks.

Li founded the Huobi exchange in 2013, later selling the company to crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun. Tensions between the two individuals included lawsuits over the use of the term Huobi Global and accusations of fraud.

Related: 95% of corporate ETH buys happened in Q3 — start of Ether supercycle?

According to data from Nansen, the price of ETH was $3,857 at the time of publication, having surged by more than 9% in the previous seven days.

Avenir is still a top Bitcoin holder

The investment company reported holding about 16.5 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund, or IBIT, in August. Accelerating its purchase of other tokens like Ether and Solana (SOL) — the company participated in launching a $500-million Solana treasury in September — could significantly impact investment strategies in the crypto industry.