Li Lin, the creator of Huobi, has partnered with some of the first Ethereum backers in Asia to establish a $1 billion digital asset trust to amass Ethereum.
According to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the situation, Li, who also serves as chair of Avenir Capital, is collaborating with Shen Bo, co-founder of Fenbushi Capital, Xiao Feng, chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, and Cai Wensheng, the founder of the photo-editing app Meitu Inc. and one of the most well-known cryptocurrency investors in China.
$1 Billion Ether-Focused Trust
The firm intends to use a shell corporation registered on the Nasdaq to set up the Ether trust, offering a controlled environment for institutional involvement, Bloomberg reported.
According to insiders who asked not to be named since the talks are confidential, the project has already raised around $1 billion, including $500 million from HongShan Capital Group (previously Sequoia China) and $200 million from Li’s Avenir.
In the next weeks, a formal announcement is anticipated. At a time when institutional interest in cryptocurrency is growing due to the success of US spot Bitcoin ETFs, the trust is intended to provide regulated exposure to Ether and associated digital assets.
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As the market awaits the approval of spot Ether ETFs in key jurisdictions, the move puts Li’s organisation in a position to meet the rising demand from investors for Ethereum-based financial products.
More on the Creator
Li established Huobi in 2013 and made it one of the leading exchanges globally until selling it to businessman Justin Sun in 2021, following China’s crypto prohibition.
Later, he founded Avenir Capital, a Hong Kong-based investment company that now manages more than $1 billion in assets and is among Asia’s biggest holders of Bitcoin ETFs.
Shen, Xiao, and Cai, the partners, are among the initial group of Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneurs who invested in Ethereum soon after its introduction in 2015.
Xiao’s HashKey was one of the first to get Hong Kong’s virtual asset trading license; Cai has made many high-profile cryptocurrency investments through his own fund; and Shen’s Fenbushi Capital supported many early blockchain businesses.
Ethereum’s growing interest
To talk about Ethereum, leading industry leaders, such as Joseph Lubin, CEO of Consensys, and Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of SharpLink, spoke on Ethereum’s expanding role as the backbone of institutional finance at the Digital Assets Summit (DAS) 2025 in London.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has seen some growing institutional investment in 2025. Even though it faced a lot of backlash due to its excessive gas fees last week, this $1 billion investment shows that the layer one blockchain is still trusted to be one of the finest in the industry.
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