Leon Lin Li is a Chinese entrepreneur who founded the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi in 2013 and grew it into one of the largest platforms in the industry before it was rebranded to HTX. He sold his controlling stake in October 2022 and stepped away from Huobi’s operations entirely. Leon Li now chairs New Huo Technology, a separate Hong Kong-listed firm, and controls X-Spot Global.
Who Is Leon Li?
Leon Li earned a Master’s degree in Control Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2007 and worked afterward as a computer engineer at Oracle before founding Renrenzhe, a lifestyle search platform, in 2009. His interest in bitcoin followed after he read the Bitcoin white paper in 2011.
In 2013, he founded Huobi, a Beijing-based digital asset exchange that grew quickly, in part by charging zero transaction fees, a detail Gulf News noted when it covered his exit from the company nearly a decade later.
Huobi went on to operate in more than 130 countries, and Leon Li represented the exchange at international conferences on blockchain policy and adoption. Huobi exited the Chinese mainland market in 2021, after Beijing declared cryptocurrency trading illegal.
That pushed the company’s operations further into Singapore, South Korea, and other regions outside China. By the time Huobi rebranded to HTX in 2023, Leon Li was no longer part of the company. He had already sold his entire stake the year before. Leon Li joins a growing list of exchange founders featured in our crypto personalities section.
Leon Li’s Career and Contributions
Leon Li’s career splits into two distinct chapters: the decade he spent building and running HTX, and the ventures he has controlled since selling it.
From Founding and Selling Huobi
Leon Li served as founder and CEO of Huobi from 2013 until October 2022. That month, he sold his full stake to a buyout firm managed by About Capital Management (HK). The sale followed months of negotiation, with Leon Li reportedly seeking $2 billion to $3 billion for roughly 60% of the company, and Tron founder Justin Sun and FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried both named as parties who had held talks about acquiring the stake.
After the deal closed, Huobi’s management confirmed Leon Li would have no further role in running the exchange, which continued on afterward as HTX.
Life After Huobi
Leon Li did not leave the crypto industry after the sale. He remains majority shareholder and non-executive director of New Huo Technology, a Hong Kong-listed digital asset services firm formerly known as Huobi Technology, and he also controls X-Spot Global, a separate company tied to the original Huobi trademark.
New Huo Technology was pulled into the FTX collapse in November 2022, when it disclosed that $18.1 million of its subsidiary Hbit Limited’s crypto assets were stuck on the exchange after it went bankrupt. Of that total, roughly $13.2 million belonged to clients, and $4.9 million belonged to Hbit itself.
To make sure client funds stayed protected while the assets were frozen, Leon Li personally offered New Huo Technology an unsecured $14 million loan as a backstop. The frozen funds were later recovered in full, so the loan was never drawn on.
Leon Li’s Views and Positions
Leon Li’s public comments on bitcoin date back to at least 2014, when Huobi was one of China’s largest exchanges. In a May 2014 interview with CoinDesk’s Jon Southurst, held near the Global Bitcoin Summit in Beijing, Leon Li and OKCoin’s Star Xu both described themselves as optimistic about bitcoin’s future in China.
They framed the central bank’s restrictions on banks working with exchanges as a real but temporary obstacle rather than a lasting block, and both pointed to excessive price speculation and investor risk as the likely drivers behind the government’s actions.
When Leon Li exited Huobi in October 2022, he framed the sale in terms of the company’s direction rather than his own retreat from the industry. According to the statement Gulf News reported at the time, Leon Li tied the move to Huobi’s 2021 exit from mainland China and described it as part of a push toward a new ownership structure suited to the exchange’s global operations. He did not detail his own plans beyond the sale itself.
Leon Li in the News
In December 2023, X-Spot Global, a firm Leon Li controls, won a Hong Kong court injunction ordering Huobi Global to stop using the Chinese-language Huobi trademark, according to CryptoNews. The mark was registered in Hong Kong in 2019, and when Leon Li and co-founder Du Jun sold Huobi Global in September 2022 to a firm connected to Justin Sun, the mark stayed with X-Spot, leaving Leon Li with legal control over part of the brand even after his exit.
CryptoNews also reported in May 2024 that Sinohope, another entity linked to Leon Li, sold its claims to Ceratosaurus Investors LLC and recovered 108% of the funds trapped on FTX, though the firm still absorbed losses tied to the episode.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still curious about the details? These are the questions that come up most often about Leon Li.
What is Leon Li best known for?
Leon Li, sometimes referred to as Li Lin in Chinese-language reporting, is a Beijing-based entrepreneur best known for founding Huobi, which grew into one of the highest-volume cryptocurrency exchanges of the mid-2010s. He built the platform from a single venture into a global operation before stepping back from the crypto exchange business in 2022.
Does Leon Li still run Huobi or HTX?
Leon Li does not run Huobi or HTX today. He sold his entire stake in October 2022 to a buyout firm managed by About Capital Management (HK), and a company spokesperson confirmed at the time that he has no ongoing role in the exchange, which later rebranded to HTX.
What does Leon Li do now?
Leon Li chairs New Huo Technology, a Hong Kong-listed digital asset services firm in which he holds a majority stake, and he separately controls X-Spot Global, an entity tied to the original Huobi trademark. Neither firm operates the Huobi or HTX exchange itself.
Why did X-Spot Global sue Huobi Global over the Huobi trademark?
X-Spot Global, a firm Leon Li controls, won a Hong Kong court injunction in December 2023 ordering Huobi Global to stop using the Chinese-language Huobi trademark. X-Spot had retained rights to the mark after the 2022 sale of Huobi Global, according to CryptoNews’ May 2024 reporting.
