Recently, a scam involving tens of millions of RMB has caused a stir in the crypto industry.
The former "number one" outdoor live-streaming anchor, who used to earn tens of millions annually, revealed in a live broadcast that he was set up by a "crypto brother" he had known for eight years, being scammed out of tens of millions of yuan (Odaily Planet Daily Note: some sources say 30 million yuan).
This "crypto good brother" is none other than Sun Zeyu, the founder of Genesis Capital, who entered the crypto industry as early as 2013 and is regarded as a "big shot" by many.
Beyond the identities of the parties and the amounts involved, what is even more outrageous is the method of the scam. The teacher himself revealed that the Ethereum he had previously entrusted Sun Zeyu to purchase turned out, after an investigation by national white-hat hackers, to not be real ETH at all, but rather token assets on a forked chain specifically set up by Sun Zeyu for him.
In this fake chain, there are only a total of 7 addresses, of which 6 are addresses arranged by Sun Zeyu; the remaining 1 is the teacher's wallet address. Sound familiar? Resembling "a WeChat group with only one person being scammed, and the rest are actors," but in the crypto world.
During this long friendship, Sun Zeyu helped the teacher "cash out" hundreds of thousands of yuan to verify the asset's authenticity. It was these successful withdrawals that made the teacher unquestionably trust all of Sun Zeyu's arrangements. Later on, the teacher even introduced friends around him to buy cryptocurrency from Sun Zeyu, and he even intervened in the matter as a guarantor. However, for various reasons, his friends eventually did not proceed with the purchase; otherwise, if his friends were scammed out of at least 10 million yuan, he would also be held accountable.
The teacher admitted in an online live broadcast that if it hadn't been discovered in time, as cryptocurrency prices continued to rise, the eventual loss could have reached hundreds of millions.
The Revolving Door of Attention Economy
Looking back at this "crypto scam" that spanned 8 years and involved tens of millions of RMB, the parties involved are, on one side, a former renowned "outdoor live-streaming king," who deeply understands the play of the attention economy and early on leveraged it to gain a considerable wealth return; and on the other side, there is the once frequently reported "crypto big shot," who entered the cryptocurrency industry in 2013, established the CoolWallet, Genesis Capital, etc., and once enjoyed great prominence.
In the world of fame and fortune, both have undoubtedly been successful individuals, but they have also been consumed by their own success: the former suffered a huge blow to his career due to tax evasion, disappearing from the public eye for a time; while the latter, due to a "proxy investment scandal," fraud, and a liquidation event, ultimately fled to another country.
Ancient Internet Celebrity Emperor Teacher: From "Outdoor Live Streaming King" to Fined Over Ten Million RMB for Tax Evasion
Emperor Teacher, whose real name is Sun Zixuan, was born in Beijing in 1984. During the golden age of the live streaming industry, he was undoubtedly a top-tier anchor. According to his own account, he has even seen a dragon, earning him the nickname "the man who has seen a dragon" among netizens.
In 2016, Emperor Teacher began his live streaming career on Huya Live; in 2018, at the peak of the live streaming industry's popularity, he moved to Douyu Esports and quickly became the "Outdoor Racing King" of the platform. His live broadcasting style was bold and daring, covering outdoor adventures, food reviews, celebrity interviews, interspersed with insider information, rumors, and historical knowledge. He once live-streamed having dinner with Song Dandan and her son, attending the Huayi Brothers' star-studded night, and visiting an esports team base. At its peak, his account had millions of followers.
He enjoyed this fame for three to four years until 2022, when Emperor Teacher faced a major turning point in his life:
On June 9th of that year, the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation announced that the online anchor Sun Zixuan (screen name Emperor Teacher) was suspected of tax evasion. Upon investigation, it was found that from 2019 to 2020, he failed to declare and underpaid personal income tax by 1.9786 million yuan, used an intermediary company to conceal live streaming gift income and evade 2.2012 million yuan in personal income tax, and underpaid other taxes by 0.3476 million yuan. Ultimately, the total amount of back taxes, late fees, and fines reached 11.7145 million yuan.
This "tax evasion scandal" severely impacted his live streaming career, causing him to disappear from the public eye.
"Crypto Tycoon" Sun Zeyu: From "Innocent Post-90s" to a Dual Life of Crypto Fraud Repeat Offender
As a post-90s youngster like Justin Sun, Sun Zeyu entered the blockchain industry as early as 2013, becoming one of the first domestic participants in the cryptocurrency field. In 2016, he co-founded Coolbit Wallet as a partner, a hardware wallet product focusing on secure storage of cryptocurrency assets. In December 2017, he co-founded Genesis Capital with Zhu Huaiyang, focusing on blockchain industry venture capital and investment banking services.
In public information, Sun Zeyu can be described as a promising "elite in the crypto world" and "crypto tycoon," carrying titles such as "CCTV Invited Commentator," "Blockchain Consultant of Peking University's FinTech Innovation Lab," and "Founding Partner of Genesis Capital," among others, and being active in media reports. In an interview with The Guardian of the UK, he boldly predicted, "Within ten years, Bitcoin will reach a price of one coin per villa." In 2018, Interface News once referred to him as the "most genuine post-90s individual in the crypto world," revealing that he had accumulated "nine-figure assets" within 6 years. After the establishment of Genesis Capital, Sun Zeyu also invested in various projects such as DeepBrain Chain (DBC), IOS, AELF, JEX, Game.com, and others, earning a high reputation in the industry.
In 2018, during the period when the two met, it was a shared "period of life improvement" for both parties—Emperor Teacher was then at the peak of the live streaming industry, enjoying a lucrative income and astonishing influence, while Sun Zeyu was a hotshot investor in the crypto world, well-versed in crypto investments. One had the money to invest, and the other was willing to provide professional investment advice and operational management—a seemingly perfect cross-industry investment relationship began in this way.
Unraveling an Eight-Year Scam: How a Fake Chain Swallowed Tens of Millions
According to Emperor Teacher's own confession, the opportunity for him to meet Sun Zeyu arose when another friend of Sun Zeyu swindled nearly 10 million RMB from him. Sun Zeyu took the initiative to help him "break even" through quantitative trading, eventually gaining trust with a fourfold return on investment. Subsequently, Emperor Teacher made multiple Bitcoin purchases through Sun Zeyu and everything seemed fine. However, considering the security of the trading platform, he eventually followed Sun's advice and deposited the corresponding assets into the Kishu Inu wallet, inadvertently giving Sun Zeyu the opportunity to replace the assets.
The scam details revealed by Emperor Teacher in the live stream can be described as a textbook case of the crypto industry's "proxy investment scam." The entire operation logic of the scam can be broken down into the following key steps:
Step One: Build Trust, Initial Small Transactions
Using his public identity as the founder of Genesis Capital, co-founder of Kishu Inu Wallet, as well as titles such as CCTV commentator and advisor to Peking University, Sun Zeyu rapidly established a "professional and trustworthy" image as an investor. For an outsider like Emperor Teacher, these accolades served as the best endorsement of credibility.
Initially, Sun Zeyu helped Emperor Teacher purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies on his behalf, everything appeared normal. Even when Emperor Teacher needed money, Sun Zeyu could help him "cash out millions." These successful transaction records further cemented Emperor Teacher's trust.
Step Two: Introduce Fake Chain, Bait and Switch
This is the most crucial and malicious step of the entire scam.
Sun Zeyu did not use Emperor's funds to actually purchase Ethereum. Instead, he built a private forked chain where he issued seemingly Ethereum-like "tokens," which were actually "parenthesized counterfeit assets," and then handed them over to the Emperor.
Since the Emperor did not come from a technical background and had limited knowledge of cryptocurrency, he could not distinguish whether the "Ethereum" tokens in his wallet were genuine Ethereum mainnet assets or digital symbols on a private chain. To him, seeing the balance, receiving the "tokens," and even being able to withdraw large amounts was sufficient.
The truth about this fake chain is: the entire chain consists of only 7 addresses, 6 belonging to Sun Zeyu's associates and 1 belonging to the Emperor. This means that the Emperor's "hard-earned money" never actually existed in the real market from the beginning; it was merely a virtual number on Sun Zeyu's carefully orchestrated blockchain ledger.
Step Three: Expand Investments, Increase Capital Injection
In addition to buying cryptocurrency on behalf, Sun Zeyu also recommended more investment opportunities to the Emperor, including a cryptocurrency exchange platform operating in South Korea. The Emperor, trusting this "good brother" completely, continued to increase his investment.
Step Four: Maintain the Illusion, Delay Exposure
Sun Zeyu understood well that to keep the scam going, he had to continuously provide the victims with "positive reinforcement." Funds withdrawal, occasional "profits," market updates, and even daily greetings and concerns—even on holidays—made the Emperor believe that his crypto investment was steadily growing, with the asset value even soaring.
For eight years, tens of millions in funds flowed into a meticulously designed black hole. It wasn't until 2026 that the Emperor, after hearing about Sun Zeyu's series of fraudulent events, discovered the truth of the "fake chain, fake Ethereum, fake coins" through a professional investigation.
Emperor was not the only Victim: Sun Zeyu's Delegated Investment Scam Repeatedly Targeted One Victim after Another
The Emperor was not the only one harmed by Sun Zeyu's "delegated investment."
The first victim was an early cryptocurrency industry participant named William Lu. In 2022, through an intermediary, he took part in a primary delegated investment in the TIA (Celestia) project, paying Sun Zeyu approximately $300,000. Both parties signed a written contract explicitly stating Sun Zeyu's name, ID number, receiving address, and bearing his signature. However, after TIA officially launched, William Lu did not receive the corresponding tokens, and Sun Zeyu went completely incommunicado.
The second victim is BitRing founder and Web3 entrepreneur Lu Zi. In early 2021, his team transferred about $1.5 million to Sun Zeyu under the guise of "financial investment" (with the partner having previously invested $500,000 and later adding $1 million). Sun Zeyu promised a double-digit annualized return and guaranteed the principal verbally. Shortly after, Sun Zeyu informed them that the funds were "completely lost due to liquidation," but never provided any transaction records or liquidation evidence, nor returned any funds, and then went missing.
According to the statistics of the two victims, currently about 3 to 4 confirmed victims can be found on social media, with individual amounts ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Another individual, referred to as "94" in the crypto industry, lost about $1 million, and there may be more victims who have not been publicly disclosed.
What is even more alarming is that the victims revealed that Sun Zeyu is no longer in China. There are rumors that he is currently in Cambodia, under the control of some local forces. Whether the rumors are true or not, an indisputable fact is: cross-border pursuit in the cryptocurrency field is extremely difficult, the road to justice for the victims is full of obstacles, and the invested funds will most likely end up being a futile effort.
Cryptocurrency Industry Scam Landscape: Fund Delegated Investment is Just the Tip of the Iceberg, Scams Are Diverse
The Emporer's Incident is not an isolated case. In fact, "delegated investment scams" are just one of the many risks in the cryptocurrency industry. Typical cases and methods include but are not limited to:
· PlusToken Ponzi Scheme: In 2020, the Yancheng Police in Jiangsu Province uncovered a massive PlusToken network Ponzi scheme involving 310,000 bitcoins and 9.17 million ethers, with the total asset value exceeding 40 billion RMB at that time.
· Delegated Investment Exit Scam: From the ICO boom in 2017 to the present, exit scams related to delegated investment have been rampant. Delegated investors abscond after pooling funds, collusion between project parties and delegated investors to rug pull, using fake tokens to impersonate real coins—various methods that are hard to guard against.
· Fake Wallets/Fake Exchanges: Phishing websites, malicious wallet apps, fake trading platforms—every year, a large number of users lose substantial assets due to these traps.
The common characteristics of these events/types are: Scammers exploit information asymmetry and trust relationships to transfer funds and mainstream coins from outsiders and insiders into their own pockets, exchanging their own worthless assets for other people's real money and assets.
The unique aspect of the Imperial Tutor's scam lies in taking the "trusted acquaintance scam" to the extreme. At the same time, the gradual scam, akin to boiling a frog in warm water, is more insidious than a one-time rug pull, making it even more difficult to guard against.
Four Cryptocurrency Investment Tips for Beginners: Reject Custody Services, Learn to Verify, Understand the Basics, Stay Wary of High Returns
1. Never hand over your assets for custody by others
"Not Your Key, not your coin." This is the most basic rule in the cryptocurrency industry. No matter how prominent the other party's identity is or how close your relationship is, once you hand over your funds for someone else to buy, invest, or hold on your behalf, you lose control of your assets. The Imperial Tutor's lesson is that he didn't even know if he held genuine coins—because the private key wasn't in his possession, and the blockchain was beyond his awareness.
2. Learn to verify the authenticity of assets
If you hold cryptocurrency, you must learn to independently verify if your assets exist on the legitimate public blockchain. Ethereum has Etherscan, Bitcoin has Blockchain.com Explorer; by entering your address, you can view all transaction records and asset balances. A "chain" with only 7 addresses is nonexistent on a real public blockchain explorer.
3. Conduct self-learning before investing
Cryptocurrency investment has a very high technical barrier. Knowledge of public blockchain principles, wallet security, smart contract risks, on-chain analysis—these are not something you can grasp by reading a few public articles. If you are an internet celebrity or a newcomer to the industry looking to allocate cryptocurrency assets, you have two options: either hire a truly professional team with qualifications and custody solutions for compliant operations, or spend enough time self-learning. From basic principles to practical verification, thoroughly understand every step. The most dangerous state is being "half-knowledgeable"—thinking you understand, but in reality, unable to distinguish between a fake chain and a real chain, falling victim to a phishing website found through a simple search.
4. Beware of "trusted recommendations" and high return promises
Almost all investment scams begin with "trusted recommendations." Friends mentioning exclusive quotas, siblings talking about principal-protected financial products, acquaintances promoting coins with a hundredfold return—the essence of these sales pitches is to exploit trust to lower your guard. In addition, any promises of principal protection, "guaranteed returns," or "risk-free profits" in cryptocurrency investments should be met with high skepticism. The cryptocurrency market itself is highly volatile, and there are no risk-free high returns, including those seemingly attractive DeFi arbitrage opportunities.
Overall, whether an internet celebrity or an ordinary person, to survive in this high-risk field, the only moat is professional knowledge and sufficient vigilance.
At the time of writing, there has been no police report or judicial verdict regarding the Emperor's disclosure incident. The final determination of "fraud" still needs to be confirmed by the judicial authority. However, regardless of the legal outcome, the lesson learned by the Emperor at the cost of tens of millions of RMB has been enough to sound the alarm for all those who come after.
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