Maji Fund's Desperate 40x Gamble: From BTC Failure to a $75M ETH Bet That Smells Like Fear

Two attempts. Two failures. $24.3 million in notional value, vaporized in a puff of 40x leverage. That was the scene on August 23rd, when Maji Fund's leader, Huang Licheng, tried to force a Bitcoin long and got slapped twice by the market. The second attempt alone bled $165,000 in losses before the position was closed. Then came the pivot. Fast, sharp, and loaded with adrenaline: Maji flipped to Ethereum, stacking a $75 million long at $2,370. It's already up $1.96 million. But don't call it smart money. Call it what it is: a wounded trader chasing a comeback with a gun to his own head. Here's the context you need. We're in the middle of a sideways grind, August 2024. Bitcoin is hovering around $60,000, Ethereum is stuck in a $2,300–$2,500 range. The post-halving digestion phase has everyone on edge. ETH spot ETFs got approved, but the inflows are lukewarm. Into this soup walks Maji Fund, a name that's been making noise in the derivatives corners. Huang Licheng isn't a faceless quant. He's a known entity in the Chinese-speaking crypto community, often linked to the moniker "Liang Xi" — a trader famous for high-leverage antics and, historically, for blowing up accounts. That's the guy now holding a $75 million ETH long at 40x leverage. And he's also sitting on long positions in HYPE (worth ~$19.85 million) and PUMP (~$4.87 million). The portfolio is a high-octane cocktail of risk. Let's break down the core mechanics, because the numbers tell a story that the headlines miss. The failed BTC trades weren't just bad luck. They were a signal. Twice, Huang tried to open a 40x leveraged long on Bitcoin. Twice, the market rejected him. The second attempt, a $24.3 million position, was closed at a $165,000 loss. That's a 0.68% loss on notional, but with 40x leverage, it's a 27% hit on margin. The fund's risk appetite is off the charts. Industry standard says anything above 10x is reckless. 40x is a death wish. But here's the twist: after those failures, Maji didn't retreat. It doubled down on Ethereum. The $75 million long at $2,370 is now the fund's biggest bet. At current prices, it's in profit, but the margin of safety is razor-thin. A 5% drop from entry — to around $2,250 — would trigger a margin call. At 40x, a 2.5% adverse move wipes out the entire position. That's not a trade. That's a prayer. Now, the market impact. A $75 million long isn't nothing. It can provide short-term support around the $2,370 level. But it's a single fund, not a wave of institutional adoption. The real question is what happens if ETH breaks below that entry. Liquidation cascades are the stuff of nightmares. If Maji gets force-closed, the sell pressure could push ETH down further, triggering a chain reaction of leveraged longs. The funding rates and open interest data would show the strain, but the article doesn't give us that. What we do know is that this fund is also long HYPE and PUMP. HYPE is likely tied to Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetuals exchange. That's a bet on the DEX derivatives narrative. PUMP, possibly from Pump.fun on Solana, is a meme-coin play. So Maji is straddling multiple ecosystems, but the core thesis is ETH strength relative to BTC. That's a contrarian call in a market where Bitcoin dominance is still above 50%. Here's the contrarian angle that nobody's talking about. The narrative forming around this trade is "smart money rotating from BTC to ETH." That's a dangerous oversimplification. This isn't a calculated portfolio rebalancing. It's a desperate recovery attempt after two failed BTC longs. Huang Licheng's history suggests a pattern: high leverage, big swings, and occasional blow-ups. The shift to ETH might not be conviction — it might be tilt. When a trader loses on a 40x BTC long, the instinct is to chase the next move with even more size. That's what we're seeing. The $75 million ETH position is 30x larger than the failed BTC trade. That's not confidence. That's revenge trading. And revenge trading has a predictable ending. The market doesn't care about your P&L. It cares about your liquidation price. And at $2,250, Maji's ETH position becomes a target for any whale or bot that wants to trigger a cascade. Algorithms smell fear, but they respect speed. Right now, the fear is palpable. Let me give you a technical read based on my years watching these patterns. The $2,370 entry is now a psychological level. If ETH holds above it, the trade works. If it breaks, the stop-loss or liquidation will accelerate the move. The profit of $1.96 million is a cushion, but at 40x, that's only about 2.6% of the notional. A single red candle can erase it. The real risk isn't the direction — it's the leverage. Yield is a drug; exit liquidity is the cure. Maji is high on the drug right now, and the cure is nowhere in sight. The market is a chaotic mess, but chaos is just data waiting for a narrative. The narrative here is a fund on the edge, and the data says the edge is sharp. So what do we watch next? First, the $2,370 level on ETH. If it breaks, expect a quick flush to $2,250 or lower. Second, any on-chain data showing Maji's position size changing. If they start reducing, it's a sign of panic. Third, whether other funds follow this "rotation" narrative. If we see multiple large ETH longs opening, the story gains legs. But if this is a solo act, it's just noise. I didn't come here to tell you that ETH is going to moon or crash. I came to tell you that a 40x leveraged fund with a known risk-taker at the helm is now the marginal buyer. That's not a signal. That's a warning. The question isn't whether Maji is right. It's whether they can survive being wrong. And in this market, survival is a luxury. We don't get to choose our exits. The market does. Keep your eyes on the charts, and remember: the higher the leverage, the shorter the leash.