The first generation of pioneers: from mining to exchanges
Between 2011 and 2013, Bitcoin quietly emerged in China, and a group of earliest "gold diggers" began to plan mining.
During this period, Shenyu founded F2Pool, one of the world's earliest mining pools, while Bao Erye (Guo Hongcai) from Shanxi built the world's largest Bitcoin mine on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.
At the same time, Wu Jihan and Yang Linke co-founded Bitmain and developed the first batch of dedicated Bitcoin mining machines ASIC, setting off a "computing power arms race."
The prosperity of the mining circle also gave rise to the first power struggle within the cryptocurrency circle: Shenyu represented the interests of "small and medium-sized miners" and emphasized decentralization; Wu Jihan represented the capital power of Bitmain and pursued industry monopoly.
The two sides launched a fierce confrontation over the dispute over Bitcoin expansion (SegWit vs Bitcoin Cash), which eventually triggered the Bitcoin fork war in 2017. On August 1, 2017, Bitcoin hard forked, and the birth of BTC and BCH also laid the groundwork for the bloody storm in the mining circle that lasted for several years.
The BCH ABC chain led by Jihan Wu and the BCH BSV chain represented by CSW are divided into two opposing camps!
The Bitcoin SV community hopes that BCH will remain as described in Satoshi Nakamoto’s paper, with strict restrictions on operation codes, focusing on the transfer transaction itself, and hopes to eventually expand the block size to 128MB.
The Bitcoin ABC community hopes that while the block size remains at 32MB (expanded from 8MB to 32MB in May this year), BCH should be developed towards the direction of infrastructure public chain. In this way, BCH will be able to open up more application scenarios like Ethereum.
The two parties with different opinions also caused the consensus protocol of BCH to be incompatible, which had to be resolved through a hard fork. The longest chain after the hard fork can be the main chain, and only the digital currency obtained in the main chain is valuable. Therefore, this hard fork is also a battle of computing power. BCH forked in the early morning of November 16, and the protocol upgrade began at the BCH block height of 556766!
Exchange Wars: The Rise of CZ and He Yi
In 2013, OKCoin rose rapidly under the leadership of Xu Mingxing, absorbing young programmer Zhao Changpeng (CZ) and former host He Yi.
But just one year later, due to disputes over concepts and equity, CZ and Xu Mingxing fell out and chose to leave. After leaving OKCoin, He Yi also accumulated a lot of industry resources.
In 2017, CZ founded Binance and He Yi became Binance CMO, one responsible for technology and the other for marketing. The two worked closely together, seizing the dividends of the ICO wave and global user expansion, and within half a year, Binance became the world's largest exchange in terms of trading volume.
During the same period, although Xu Mingxing's OKEx also went international, it frequently encountered problems with management, and eventually the OK Group fell into a regulatory vortex. Xu Mingxing himself was repeatedly placed under border control and even briefly detained. Binance became the king, while OK gradually sank.
The myth of wealth creation in the cryptocurrency circle and Sun Yuchen’s alternative narrative
If CZ represents the cold rationality of an engineer, Justin Sun represents another extreme - a marketing maniac who plays the wealth-making game.
Justin Sun founded TRON in 2017 and made himself the most famous "super internet celebrity" in the global cryptocurrency circle through a complete model of "issuing coins-platform-washing traffic-pulling the market". His famous saying is: "As long as the heat is still there, the story will not die."
In 2019, he spent $30 million to bid for the Buffett lunch. He invested in Poloniex, Steemit, and BitTorrent, laying out the exchange + content ecosystem.
At the same time, he is also synonymous with money laundering and capital operation in the cryptocurrency circle.
The evaluation of Justin Sun in the cryptocurrency circle is extremely polarized - some people see him as a genius marketer, while others see him as a traffic scammer.
But what is undeniable is that he accurately stepped on the nodes of every wave in the cryptocurrency circle and always managed to successfully "cash out" before the bear market.
The "Godfather" of the Cryptocurrency Circle: Li Xiaolai's Preaching and Fall
Between 2013 and 2017, Li Xiaolai was undoubtedly one of the most influential people in the cryptocurrency world. He rose to fame as an early Bitcoin evangelist and author of the best-selling book (Time is Your Friend). Through the leak of Yunbi.com, Bit Foundation, and the recording of his dark history as the "Godfather of Leek Cutting", he became one of the most controversial figures in the cryptocurrency circle.
He single-handedly supported projects such as NEO (Da Hongfei) and Qtum (Shuai Chu); he collaborated with Bao Erye many times to jointly promote projects during the ICO boom; but he also became infamous overnight because of the "leek-cutting recording scandal."
Li Xiaolai gradually withdrew from the front line in the later period and turned to education and angel investment, but the "traffic is death" and "cryptocurrency bubble theory" he left behind still influence the cultural atmosphere of the entire cryptocurrency industry.
Undercurrents and Gaming: Capital Operations of Lao Mao and Da Hongfei
As the few players in the cryptocurrency circle who have crossed over from the traditional investment world, Lao Mao (Liu Fei) and Da Hongfei represent a more sophisticated and capitalized faction.
NEO, created by Da Hongfei, was once known as the "Chinese Ethereum" and its market value once ranked among the top ten in the world;
Lao Mao led the investment in hundreds of blockchain projects between 2016 and 2018 and was known as the "Sequoia in the cryptocurrency circle."
They usually operate in a low-key manner, but they control a large amount of resources in the primary market of the cryptocurrency circle and have mastered the rules of the game that "issuing coins means wealth."
They cooperate with traffic-oriented people such as Justin Sun and Bao Erye, and also have subtle competition, but overall they belong to a more rational and more capitalized circle.
Post-ICO Era: DeFi, NFT and the New Situation
After the ICO ban in 2017 and the bear market in 2018, the cryptocurrency world ushered in the DeFi (decentralized finance) and NFT boom in 2020. CZ quickly deployed Binance Smart Chain (BSC), copied the Ethereum ecosystem, and attracted a large number of DeFi projects;
Justin Sun has frequently made investments in DeFi and NFT, including the acquisition of a large number of blue-chip NFT assets;
Shenyu has transformed into infrastructure and asset custody, and Cobo has gradually become an important "water and electricity company" in the industry; Bao Erye is active on Weibo and social networks, playing the role of grassroots mentor and traffic leader;
Li Xiaolai retired completely, occasionally commenting on events in the cryptocurrency circle through Weibo; Xu Mingxing's OK Group was reorganized and eliminated.
In the new wave, a group of new generations (such as Juanmao, Feng Bo, and Dongfang Xiaokan) have emerged, but Justin Sun and CZ still hold the highest voice.
Regulatory Storm: The Final Showdown among Cryptocurrency Leaders?
In 2021, China completely banned mining and trading, and the core forces of the cryptocurrency circle moved abroad. In 2022-2023, the US regulatory storm swept the world, CZ was heavily fined for Binance and resigned, and He Yi was behind the transformation of Binance.
Justin Sun shifted the battlefield to Huobi (HTX) and TRON public chains, and continued to maintain his influence through TRON and USDD stablecoins.
Shenyu and Bao Erye are becoming increasingly low-key, turning more to behind-the-scenes investment and infrastructure fields.
The entire cryptocurrency industry is moving from an era of chaos and chaos to a new stage of compliance, globalization, and capitalization.
And these names - Justin Sun, Changpeng Zhao, Bao Erye, Shenyu, He Yi, Li Xiaolai, Wu Jihan, Lao Mao, Da Hongfei - no matter how the future changes, have become an inseparable part of this legendary history.
Crypto "Coming of Age": A New Crypto Narrative
On April 30, 2024, CZ was sentenced to four months in prison in the United States. He was not released from a correctional institution in California until September 27, local time.
After regaining his freedom, he also resigned from the position of Binance CEO and stepped behind the scenes to exert influence in the cryptocurrency circle through investment!
On March 12, 2025, MGX invested 2 billion US dollars in Binance and acquired a minority stake in Binance. With the help of sovereign capital, Binance may accelerate the layout of the tokenized real economy!
To sum up in one sentence:
There is no myth of eternal invincibility in the cryptocurrency world. The rise and fall of any individual, project, or exchange has a clear cyclical pattern (bull market-bear market-regulation-innovation).
Always stay sober and think independently.
In the cryptocurrency world, winning is not just about making a profit. Only those who can take the money away safely and walk away from the table alive are the real winners!
