Caixin: Poker master Hu Zhewen has sued Jump Trading and Chinese professor Zhang Yongfeng after three consecutive heavy crypto bets went wrong

PANews reported on September 26, citing Caixin, that Hu Zhewen, a Chinese Texas Hold'em master and veteran crypto investor, made heavy bets in three successive crypto booms—ICO, algorithmic stablecoins, and AI tokens—but failed one after another. Hu said he once invested in the blockchain project Stratis and achieved a return of "more than 1,000x."

According to disclosed information, between May 2021 and May 2022, Hu invested about $80 million to buy the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and its sister token LUNA, with his holdings once exceeding $800 million in market value at their peak, but LUNA's price subsequently fell to near zero.

In addition, Hu has sued the globally renowned quantitative trading firm Jump Trading, along with its crypto-related companies and executives, in Chicago, seeking at least $500 million in damages. After going through Stox and Terra, Hu still has not left the crypto market. Last January, he bet on a new project by a Chinese computer science professor, Zhang Yongfeng. Zhang entered the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University in 2007 and is currently a tenured associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rutgers University in the United States. He has been taken to court by Hu on multiple charges including "securities fraud." It is reported that the tokens issued by the institution founded by Zhang, which Hu bought with millions of dollars, have fallen more than 99.6% from their 2025 peak.