In April 2022, on-chain data showed that a wallet address has accumulated 102 MAYC (the second largest holder), 55 BAYC (the sixth largest holder), and 1.51 million APE (about $24 million) so far, and the wallet address is marked as the personal possession of singer Jeffery Huang/MachiBigBrother.
Recently, some media reported that crypto KOL zachxbt posted an article revealing that "Machi Big Brother" Huang Licheng was exposed to launch more than ten garbage projects and was suspected of embezzling huge amounts of money (unconfirmed). In this regard, Huang Licheng posted on social media that the quality control was false information. If the whistleblower is not anonymous, Huang Licheng will sue him for defamation.
From the 17 live broadcasts that have been popular all over Asia to today's "crypto cutting leek gangsters", from the initial artists, to the owners of live broadcast companies, to the entrepreneurs of blockchain companies and the questioned, Huang Licheng's identity has been changing.
When asked how he positioned himself, he said he felt a little bored being defined by others. "I hope that others think that this person is still quite caring, and a simple identity is the boss." Indeed, whether in life or in his career, Huang Licheng is called a big brother by the people around him. Some time ago, Jay Chou's "monkey" NFT disappeared, and afterwards Jay Chou said that the "monkey" was given by the eldest brother Huang Licheng.
Today, let's take a look at the "big ge" who turned from Taiwan's "hip-hop originator" to blockchain.
01
Rebellious slash youth
Huang Licheng was born on November 7, 1972 in Taiwan, where his grandfather was a large landowner, and the family moved to California, before his younger brother Huang Lixing was born.
Before his debut, he danced in the famous "Funky Asian Buddy" dance troupe in the United States. Because he did not like to study, Huang Licheng stopped going to school after graduating from high school.
In the 1990s, Huang Licheng, who graduated from high school, returned to Taiwan from the United States with his younger brother Huang Lixing and cousin Lin Zhiwen to form the "L.A.BOYZ" group, and their cool dance steps and trendy music style became the hot hip-hop singers in the Taiwanese music scene at that time.
Although Hip-Hop is Huang Licheng's life posture, he is a person who loves to toss and likes to walk in the forefront of the times. In the late 1990s, Huang Licheng set up a software translation company in the United States, but fell into the Internet bubble. So in 2003, he sold the company and returned to Taiwan to set up Maji Entertainment Company, becoming the head of the hip-hop group MaChi, and Huang Licheng was also known as "Maji Big Brother". Maji is a consonant of the English "match", which means that the relationship is good and very tacit. Along the way, both with the younger brothers founded L.A. Boyz, or the later establishment of the Machi Kingdom, brothers and friends are members that Huang Licheng values very much.
However, in the Machi era, because of the relationship between legislators such as Qiu Yiying who wrote the song "Retribution" to satirize the relationship between legislators who advocated amending the Copyright Law to introduce the copyright compensation system, some politicians at the time condemned it and even prosecuted him for "aggravating the crime of defamation".
In addition to "hip hop", he has successively operated entrepreneurial projects such as restaurants and spas, and also founded a "Good Maji" social APP. The most sensational is the live broadcast platform "17 Live" that became popular throughout Asia in 2015.
As a creator, Huang Licheng has long seen the dilemmas faced by creators. At present, most social media platforms at home and abroad are facing problems such as the spread of false information, the security leakage of personal information, the difficulty of confirming and tracking content copyright, and the flood of advertising content.
In line with the concept of "creating a price", he set up a 17 live broadcast platform, so that content producers can directly interact with fans and obtain their due rights and interests.
In July 2015, he and Wang Sicong met for the first time at a Japanese food store in Shanghai, and it took only ten minutes for Wang Sicong to decide to invest on the spot. 17 Live streams once topped Apple's APP Store charts in many Asian countries. Later, it was removed due to problems such as lax censorship of live content, and was acquired by Paktor, a Singapore dating platform, in 2016.
02
Enter the crypto industry
Although live entrepreneurship Waterloo, Huang Licheng has always been optimistic about content social projects.
In 2017, the cryptocurrency market ushered in a bull market, and under the introduction of friends and colleagues, Huang Licheng began to understand cryptocurrencies and blockchain. He found that the blockchain has the characteristics of immutable + traceability + distributed consensus, which can build a transparent platform that makes users feel safe and gives back to creators, a more ideal platform for creators. In September of that year, he met Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, at a blockchain conference in Taiwan. "We talked in the background for 20 minutes, he gave me a lot of ideas, I think this brother is super bull, I also want to fight in the blockchain field." Huang Licheng said.
In early 2018, Huang Licheng launched the Blockchain Social Project: a decentralized social network that uses blockchain technology to reward the contributions of content producers.
Huang Licheng said, "When users use social media such as Facebook, they always put personal content on the platform, and the platform can rely on the traffic generated by users to collect advertising fees, which is unfair." ”
Then, in 2019, in order to break the current situation of uneven distribution of music copyright, Huang Licheng used the virtual copyright trading platform to allow fans to support creators through virtual currency or credit cards.
After passing the official audit and certification, creators can sell the copyright of their works on the platform, and their works can have music, paintings and other art forms. Its fans can then purchase a part of the copyright rights on the platform and enjoy certain benefits. In other words, the purchaser can become a shareholder in the creator.
However, some of Huang Licheng's initial projects did not seem to have been very successful, because the project crashed and was once criticized by the crypto community.
It has even been criticized that Huang Licheng's entry into the cryptocurrency field through Mithril in 2017 was the beginning of his participation in the launch of the "Cutting Leek Project".
03
After several twists and turns
In some media interviews, Huang Licheng once said that the project in 2018 was too advanced, and many details were not thought out, and the result collapsed.
So I did CREAM again, but it turned out to be hacked. "Yes, it was really miserable, I took an expensive lesson and realized how deep the Defi water was, and we were scared of almost $140 million, but then there was a way to compensate the customer."
Later, the outbreak of the epidemic began to get involved in NFTs, so there was the news that Jay Chou was stolen at the beginning of this year (BAYC) was also sent by Huang Licheng.
Although he has faded out of the entertainment industry for many years, Huang Licheng, known as the "originator of hip-hop" in Taiwan, is still difficult to hide his "hip-hop" temperament in every word and deed.
Huang Licheng said that he actually observed BAYC for a long time, went to mint without a problem, and also set off a monkey atmosphere in the artist circle!
"I remember that the first artist to give was Kai Kai (Ke Zhendong), Bo Lin's monkey was also given to him by me, Bai Lin had a good eye, and he chose the most limited amount in my collection, as if it ranked in the top 50!" At that time, it was not as expensive as it is now, but it was not cheap, probably more than ten thousand DOLLARs. ”
Regarding NFTs, he believes that "NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) mean non-homogeneous tokens, and the scope of application can be very wide, and what real estate certificates, art copyrights, and even identity certificates can also be NFTs; These technologies have long been mature, and the question is whether the national government has this understanding in terms of policy, or whether it intends to move in this direction, which has to be a question mark. ”
Although the environment is not very good, he is very optimistic about this direction. In addition, the public also holds a lively mentality, in addition to thinking that this is a scam bubble, more only care about how much the currency and NFT in hand can rise, who cares what decentralized is doing? This is all normal, when Web 1.0 first came out, I couldn't imagine what the future would look like, everything was a process. ”
However, Huang Licheng also pointed out that in the cryptocurrency jianghu, although there are many teams that really strive to do technology, there are also many deceptive projects. Therefore, Huang Licheng has reminded investors that it is necessary to create social media such as Discord, Twitter, Telegram, etc., communicate more with the international community, and receive first-hand information, and call on investors to be careful in choosing communication media.
Having said that, in the context of the "black history" of many cryptocurrency fields, these reminders seem to be some thieves shouting to catch thieves
04
"Big Brother" or "Big Cut"?
Recalling every blockchain project that has been contacted and created since he joined the blockchain field in 2018, Huang Licheng lamented that in fact, most of the blockchain applications that everyone sees at present are immature, and at the same time, the blockchain industry is still a blue ocean with deep potential, which deserves everyone's attention and joins successively!
It is undeniable that Huang Licheng once had a lot of glory, and founded the hip-hop group L.A. at the age of 20. Boyz, bringing hip-hop music to Taiwan; At the age of 40, he can also transform into an entrepreneur, from catering, live broadcasting, e-sports, etc. to the blockchain.
Now there is negative news that more than a dozen garbage projects have been launched and suspected of misappropriating huge amounts of money. As a pioneer of behaviorism, how will 50-year-old Huang Licheng respond? Will the crypto community continue to recognize him? Let's wait and see.
"Disclaimer: This article is the author's independent point of view, does not represent the vernacular blockchain position, this content is only for the majority of crypto enthusiasts to learn and communicate, does not constitute investment opinions or suggestions, please look at it rationally, establish a correct concept, and improve risk awareness. The copyright and final interpretation of the article are owned by the vernacular blockchain."