The brother of Huobi’s cofounder Li Lin — Li Wei — received millions of HT tokens for free in the initial distribution for subsequent sale, without justification. Justin Sun said.
Li Lin’s brother Li Wei, on numerous occasions through improper means massively obtained HT at zero cost, historically multiple times on the Huobi platform sold, large withdrawals, not only tarnished Li Lin’s domestic reputation, harmed the HT community’s interests of everyone, by Huobi Global Advisory Committee, HT DAO community resolved to claw back the HT Li Wei obtained at zero cost, destroy, HT destruction will be announced to the HT community. For such behaviour, zero tolerance.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) May 16, 2023
«The Huobi Advisory Committee and the HT DAO community have decided to return and destroy the assets Li received for free. We will notify about this. Such behaviour has no justification», — the founder of Tron.
According to him, Li Lin’s brother repeatedly sold and cashed out “huge volumes” of tokens.
«Now the HT DAO Committee is stepping in to fix this issue. We plan to contact Li Wei to arrange for compensation and organise the destruction of the HT remaining with him», — Sun noted.
We plan to engage with Li Wei to negotiate a refund and arrange for the destruction of his remaining HT tokens. This action is not only a matter of justice but also serves the best interests of everyone in the HT DAO community.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) May 16, 2023
He stressed that Li Wei did not make a “substantial contribution” to the community, so seizing his tokens is a “matter of justice”.
Sun did not name the exact amount of HT obtained by Li Lin’s brother.
Since the start of the year, the exchange token’s price has fallen from $5.19 to $2.88 at the time of writing — 44.5%. In the last 24 hours HT rose by almost 6%. At its all-time high in May 2021 the asset traded at $39.66 (CoinGecko).
In October 2022, journalists named Sun the ultimate beneficiary of the About Capital Management fund, which bought 58% of Huobi’s shares from Li Lin. The entrepreneur and the exchange denied this, saying Sun simply became an advisor as a member of the advisory board.
Around the same time, the founder of Tron admitted ownership of “tens of millions” HT. In March 2023 he created for Huobi a $100 million fund in USDC to bolster the exchange’s liquidity amid a sharp drop in its token.
In November 2022 the media reported a possible merger between Huobi and Poloniex, which Sun with a group of investors bought in 2019. The entrepreneur denied the rumors, but did not rule out such a development in the future. The platforms established a strategic partnership.
As a reminder, Huobi launched its own token in 2018, and at the same time the majority of the community supported the introduction of the HT burning mechanism.
Following the first quarter of 2023, the exchange destroyed 827,226 HT tokens, bringing the total supply down to 203 million HT.