On February 8, 2026, at 8:00 AM UTC+8, Huobi founder Li Lin posted on his personal social media, directly addressing the multiple rumors surrounding himself, LD, Yi Lihua's Trend Research, and Garrett Jin. On one hand, he clarified the actual boundaries of their financial and business relationships; on the other hand, he reiterated that he has not reduced his holdings in BTC or ETH, nor has he engaged in the rumored "selling coins to switch positions." At this juncture, the massive losses of Trend Research, Avenir Group's heavy investment in BTC ETF, and various rumors about major players intertwined, creating a complex and noisy public discourse. Li Lin lamented, "I have taken a break for many years, but I have to clarify similar rumors almost every year," raising the question: is this long-term need for clarification an individual's inescapable fate, or an inevitable product of the crypto market's "information black box" and narrative frenzy?
Social Media Statement: Li Lin Draws Three Boundaries
● Relationship Cutoff: In his February 8 post, Li Lin focused on clarifying three key points of public concern—his personal relationship with LD, the financial transactions with Yi Lihua's Trend Research, and his connection with Garrett Jin. He emphasized that he is not the financial decision-maker for the aforementioned institutions or individuals and has not participated in the specific investment decisions of Trend Research, attempting to delineate the boundaries between "family office—third-party institutions—individual investors" in the public eye, denying the market's simplistic binding of the parties as a "single capital group."
● Position Stance: In response to rumors of "selling BTC for ETH" and "reducing positions for cashing out," Li Lin reiterated in his post that he has not reduced his holdings in BTC or ETH, nor has he made significant cross-coin adjustments as rumored. His statement echoed some public evaluations, such as market participants mentioning that "Li Lin would not sell Bitcoin to buy Ethereum," which somewhat reinforced his public image of "long-term holding, not engaging in short-term trading," directly countering narratives attempting to explain price fluctuations with "Li Lin dumping."
● Long-term Clarification: More notably, his emotional expression—"I have taken a break for many years, but I have to clarify similar rumors almost every year"—reveals a passive situation: even after stepping back from frontline business and managing assets through a family office, he is still periodically drawn into various market storms, forced to make "annual clarifications" on social platforms. This long-term, repetitive need for clarification reflects not only a personal public relations challenge but also the structural dependence and amplification of "iconic major players" within the entire crypto discourse environment.
Family Fund Profile: Avenir…
● Family Office Role: In this round of discourse, Avenir Group frequently appears and is generally viewed as the core vehicle of Li Lin's family office in the crypto field. Public information indicates that Avenir's market positioning is closer to a long-term asset allocation platform rather than a high-frequency trading institution, with its main focus on medium to long-term holding and structured layout around mainstream assets. Due to the lack of authoritative disclosure regarding its internal management structure, external speculation about its specific decision-making processes is prevalent; thus, this article will only discuss it as a "family office + long-term holding entity," avoiding unverified governance details.
● IBIT Major Holder Identity: According to SEC 13F disclosures, multiple media reports indicate that Avenir Group is one of the largest holding institutions for BlackRock's IBIT in Asia. This fact naturally makes it a focal point of market attention: on one hand, IBIT, as a leading BTC spot ETF, often sees its top institutional holders viewed as "cyclical bullish-bearish indicators"; on the other hand, Avenir's regional and identity labels allow narratives of "Asian major players" and "Chinese-speaking world funds" to attach to it, making any news about ETF holding changes more easily interpreted as "Li Lin taking action behind the scenes."
● Long-term Allocation Orientation: Regarding Avenir's funding style, some public statements have circulated in the market. According to Du Jun's public remarks, about 80% of the ETH held by Avenir has been staked and arranged for long-term holding. If this information is accurate, it suggests that its strategy leans more towards "locking up for interest + long-term bullish" rather than frequent short-term trading. It is important to emphasize that such ratio data currently comes from public statements rather than official reports and can only serve as an observational dimension of its funding style, yet it logically aligns with Li Lin's assertion of "not reducing holdings in BTC or ETH."
Trend's Massive Loss of $734 Million…
● Massive Loss and Time Background: Almost simultaneously with Li Lin's social media post, Trend Research faced significant setbacks during this round of market fluctuations. According to BlockBeats, Trend's total loss in this round of operations is approximately $734 million, and under pressure, it has made substantial liquidations. Although public data has not fully restored the path of each transaction, leverage usage, or specific liquidation price ranges, the scale of this loss and exit naturally became a hot topic of discussion on social media against the backdrop of heightened volatility and rapidly shrinking risk appetite.
● Formation of the "Story Chain": After the loss news broke, social media quickly connected Trend Research—Yi Lihua—LD—Avenir—Li Lin into a continuous narrative chain. In this stitching logic, Trend's liquidation is seen as "the result of a larger capital system's defensive failure," and Li Lin is naturally pulled into the role of the "big boss" behind the scenes. Although there is currently no public evidence indicating that Trend's specific positions were directly directed by Avenir or Li Lin, in an environment of highly asymmetric information, the market tends to fill in the gaps with familiar names, thus forming a seemingly complete yet weakly evidenced "story version causal chain."
● Panic and Speculation Spread: The specific figure of $734 million in losses, along with strong emotional terms like "liquidation" and "bankruptcy," provided excellent material for spreading panic. Ordinary investors find it difficult to accurately distinguish the real flow of funds between Trend, Avenir, and other family funds from on-chain and off-chain data, leading to a simplified narrative where "all large inflows and outflows are seen as actions by a major player." As a result, any on-chain screenshots regarding large transfers or ETF holding changes are easily interpreted as "Li Lin retreating" or "Asian funds collapsing," further intensifying the imaginative tracking of major addresses and family offices.
Rumor Amplifiers: KOLs and Social Media…
● Original Statements Recreated: In this storm, a public evaluation stating "Li Lin would not sell Bitcoin to buy Ethereum" has been excerpted, rephrased, and even dramatized into entirely different versions in various contexts. Supporters take it as evidence of a long-term bullish stance on BTC and adherence to value investing, while opponents use it to mock his "overly bullish stance" and "overly confident statements." In the continuous secondary and tertiary dissemination, the originally simple sentence used to describe investment style gradually acquires dramatic meanings like "betting against the market" and "declaring war on shorts," providing an emotional foundation for subsequent conspiracy theories.
● Fragmented Information's Plot Stitching: Chinese social media, trading groups, and KOL accounts often play the role of "narrative engineers" in such events. Scattered on-chain large transfer screenshots, excerpts from interviews taken at different times, and unverified off-chain rumors are frequently stitched together to create a complete plot from "family office building positions—institutions cooperating to pump—major players selling at the peak—downstream buyers getting buried." This narrative structure carries a dramatic rhythm, and rather than restoring the truth, it seeks to find a sufficiently dramatic "behind-the-scenes operator" for market fluctuations.
● Clarifications Always Lag: In the information ecology of the crypto market, information sources are opaque, and the cost of tracing is extremely high is almost the norm. Rumors can be spread with just a sentence or an image, while clarifications often require the person involved to appear, provide background, explain logic, and even make sacrifices regarding some privacy boundaries. By the time individuals like Li Lin clarify through social media or interviews, the initial rumors have already spread and transformed through multiple retellings. This is the reality behind "the speed of clarification always lags behind the speed of rumor," and it explains why he says he "has to clarify almost every year" but still struggles to truly escape the shadow of public opinion.
From Individual Dilemma to Industry Malady: Crypto…
● Structural Risks of Leading Pioneers: Li Lin's years of "forced clarifications" are not an isolated case but a common structural predicament faced by leading pioneers in the crypto industry. Early participants often hold upstream positions in terms of asset scale, project discourse power, and social influence; once the market experiences severe fluctuations, public discourse naturally seeks these "identifiable major players" to fill the explanatory void. Thus, the narrative pattern of "whenever there is a major drop, someone must be dumping" and "whenever there are massive losses, it must involve certain family funds" has almost become a fixed script, making it difficult for individuals to completely exit the identified list, regardless of their actual involvement.
● On-chain Transparency and Off-chain Black Box: A major paradox in the crypto market is that on-chain transactions are highly transparent, while off-chain funds and family office operations are highly opaque. Ordinary investors can see the inflows and outflows of whale addresses in real-time but cannot accurately know the ownership structure, custody arrangements, or whether they are merely intermediaries behind these addresses. As a result, "visible on-chain actions" are directly mapped to "imagined major player intentions," severely blurring the boundary between real fund flows and narrative imaginations, leading to numerous misinterpretations.
● Disclosure Vacuum and Regulatory Absence: The institutional holding disclosure system, the extremely low-profile operation of family offices, combined with the regulatory body's slow adaptation to new asset classes, have collectively created a significant interpretative vacuum. Taking Avenir Group as an example, the public can roughly see its holdings in IBIT through SEC 13F, but it is challenging to obtain a more complete picture of its overall asset allocation, risk budget, and internal constraints. It is in this "seeing a little, not seeing more" information environment that media and social networks naturally use dramatic assumptions to complete narratives, while the real institutions and individuals can only passively come out to provide "remedial explanations" after the storm.
When Will the Next Storm Come: Investors…
The rumors surrounding Li Lin began with the news of Trend Research's approximately $734 million loss and liquidation, quickly extending into a complex narrative chain covering LD, Yi Lihua, Garrett Jin, Avenir Group, and Li Lin himself through continuous retellings on social media, KOL interpretations, and chat groups. On February 8, Li Lin made a concentrated statement on social media, attempting to sever financial ties with Trend and related individuals, emphasizing that he has not reduced his holdings in BTC and ETH, and expressing his helplessness in having to clarify rumors "every year," thus temporarily concluding a story that had been self-operating for several days.
For ordinary investors, when faced with information like "massive losses" and "major player liquidations," at least two basic principles should be adhered to: first, verify sources—distinguish between on-chain objective data, authoritative institutional disclosures, and anonymous screenshots or second-hand retellings; second, delay reactions—avoid making significant position adjustments based on emotional narratives before obtaining multi-party verification, treating "not operating for a few hours" as a protective line against the noise of public opinion. This restraint may not guarantee maximized returns, but it often helps avoid the amplification of errors driven by emotions.
Looking ahead, if the disclosure regulations surrounding ETF holdings, family office assets, and trading institutions' risk exposures are further improved, coupled with an enhancement in the professionalism of media and KOLs in information verification and expression, rumors like this one—"running wild from partial facts"—may see some reduction. Even if such storms cannot be completely eliminated, at least they can be corrected more promptly and effectively along the dissemination chain, allowing long-term participants like Li Lin, who are in the spotlight, to avoid spending energy year after year on the same type of rumors and refocus their attention on asset management and industry development itself.
Join our community to discuss and grow stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh
OKX Welfare Group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance Welfare Group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
