A few years ago, on June 5, 2019, the suicide of Hui Yi, the founder of Bitcoin Easy, shocked the cryptocurrency community.
What is even more shocking is the 2,000 bitcoins belonging to the mysterious users behind his suicide.
Looking back at the story of Hui Yi and many other BitEasy users a year later, it is heartbreaking.
1. Hui Yi: The man who became famous for “escaping from the top”
Hui Yi graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China. Before he entered the cryptocurrency industry and started BitEasy in 2017, he had a very impressive resume:
Senior researcher at IBM and senior product manager at Microsoft.
He started his own business in 2008, first in the P2P industry, but he miraculously withdrew from the industry before the massive P2P crash.
What made him even more legendary was his operations during the A-share bull market in 2015:
In June 2015, when the Shanghai Composite Index was at 4,800 points, Hui Yi went against the market sentiment and sold all his stocks. His friends were very surprised and said that he should wait until the market reaches at least 5,000 points before running away. Hui Yi replied with three words: I won’t gamble with my life. Then the A-share market plummeted, and everyone knows it.
From then on, Hui Yi was given the title of "Top Escaper".
2. Serial Entrepreneurship
In 2017, Hui Yi started his third business - BitEasy.
In fact, the approach is very similar to the two previous P2P projects “Huaguo Finance” and “Shenxian Youcai”.
"Huaguo Finance" has received investments from two government-backed institutions and is known as an online lending platform with state-owned capital; "Shenxian Youcai" raised 10 million in the angel round and 100 million in the A round; BitEasy announced that it had received strategic investment in its A round from SoftBank China and BlueRun Ventures not long after its establishment (later denied by SoftBank China)."
With his background in the University of Science and Technology of China, Hui Yi has always been pursuing an elitist and high-end packaging style.
But in these three consecutive entrepreneurial ventures, from products to industries, Hui Yi actually did not have any particularly outstanding performance.
This formed a huge contrast with his miracle of cashing out from the high point of A-shares. Perhaps even he himself felt that his entrepreneurship would not be successful and that he was more suitable for speculation.
This is probably why he later chose to bet on Bitcoin contracts and eventually committed suicide due to a margin call.
3. Switch to the cryptocurrency world
Hui Yi's "BitEasy" seems to have been born with a silver spoon in its mouth from the beginning - BitEasy has always been regarded as SoftBank China's first project invested in the blockchain.
The news that SoftBank China invested in BitEasy once caused a sensation in the entire cryptocurrency circle.
In the second half of 2018, BitEasy began to release Bitcoin financial management with astonishingly high returns: Bitcoin financial management, 79% return in three months. In other words, if you deposit 100 Bitcoins in the past, you will get back 179 Bitcoins in three months!
Such a high return, and it is based on Bitcoin, can you believe it?
Coupled with Hui Yi’s background in a prestigious university, historical achievements, and the reputation of SoftBank China’s investment endorsement, the fund quickly raised more than 2,000 bitcoins!
After that, in November, SoftBank China took the initiative to distance itself from BitEasy, saying that it had no investment. I don’t know if it has realized that there are problems with BitEasy.
4. “No need to work in the second half of the year”
In May 2019, Hui Yi said in the group that he had shorted 100 times.
What does it mean to open a short position 100 times?
If the price rises by 1%, all the principal will be lost. If the margin is not enough, the position will be liquidated directly.
A founder of a cryptocurrency project did not show off the project progress in the group, but showed off that he had shorted 100 times...
“I opened another short position of 600 bitcoins this morning.”
A 100x contract and 600 bitcoins. Where did Hui Yi, who only entered the cryptocurrency circle in 2017 and had not been successful in his previous business ventures, get so much margin?
The last time the user contacted Hui Yi was on May 27 last year.
Hui Yi initially took his 16 bitcoins and opened a short position, but the market did not fall as he had hoped, and he “would not have to work for the rest of his life.”
Originally, he would lose at most a few hundred thousand yuan this way.
However, how can you be willing to accept the fact that your position is about to be liquidated and your hopes of not having to work for the rest of your life are dashed?
So, he began to embezzle the client’s bitcoins to add margin, little by little, until he had 2,000 bitcoins. However, bitcoin went straight up past 9,000, and eventually, the client’s 100 million bitcoins were all liquidated.
5. Suicide
After the margin call, Hui Yi was disheartened and watched as all the 2,000 bitcoins he had misappropriated were lost. I'm afraid it's hard for any of us to understand the despair he felt at that time.
2,000 bitcoins! We will never see so many bitcoins in this lifetime. They were worth more than 100 million at the time, and will only increase exponentially in the future...
Faced with such a huge debt, Hui Yi chose to commit suicide.
On June 2, when a customer contacted Hui Yi, there was no response:
On June 11, BitEasy co-founder announced the news of Hui Yi's suicide: