2025 "Token Issuance Group" Overall Review! Are the Top 10 list all started from China?

Top 10 Token Issuing Groups of 2025 Revealed. Founders like Neo’s Da Hongfei, GXChain’s Huang Minqiang, Conflux team members Wu Ming and Long Fan, Ankr’s founders Fang Jingyang and Song Yunfan, and Yang Zhou from Babel Finance, which experienced a major collapse, are all on the list. Many of these teams boast impressive backgrounds such as Tsinghua Yao Class, MIT PhDs, but after their previous projects underperformed, they continued launching new tokens, with project performance varying widely.

The Empire of Repeated Token Issuance Behind Top Academic Credentials

Compared to early OG big players, many of the new token issuing groups in this round have more glamorous early resumes. The most representative is the Conflux team, with Wu Ming holding a bachelor’s from the University of Science and Technology of China and a PhD from the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and having been a senior researcher at Microsoft Asia Research Institute. Long Fan is a Tsinghua Yao Class graduate, later earning a PhD from MIT, and now an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. It is said that several members of the Conflux team are Tsinghua Yao Class alumni.

However, top academic credentials do not guarantee project success. Conflux (a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain using Tree-Graph consensus) initially received high attention but gradually lost its edge in the fiercely competitive public chain arena. During Conflux’s downturn, Wu Ming and Long Fan turned to a new project, 0G Labs (decentralized AI infrastructure focusing on modular DA layer, storage, and computing), with Wu Ming serving as CTO and Long Fan as CSSO. This pattern of launching new projects when old ones show little progress has become a typical feature of token issuing groups.

Fang Jingyang (Ryan Fang) and Song Yunfan (Chandler Song) are both graduates of UC Berkeley, early participants in the Blockchain at Berkeley program. Ryan Fang previously worked at Morgan Stanley and other investment banks; Chandler Song has a background in cloud engineering at Amazon. They founded Ankr in 2017 (DePIN infrastructure), which later spawned Bounce Finance (AUCTION, decentralized auction), BurgerCities (BURGER, MetaFi metaverse), and WHY (meme coin). This evolution from infrastructure to DeFi, metaverse, and meme coins exemplifies the typical “hot track issuance” strategy.

Jack Lu graduated from Peking University and earned an MBA from Ohio State University, with a more extensive resume. He was a co-founder of Factom (2014), founder of Wanchain (cross-chain protocol), and later founded Bounce Finance, BounceBit (BB, Bitcoin CeDeFi re-staking chain), Bitune (TUNE, Bitcoin product studio), and ChainSwap (ASAP, cross-chain). The pattern of one person being involved in multiple projects has raised market questions—whether it signifies deep focus or rapid token issuance for quick cash-out.

Distribution of Top 10 Token Issuing Groups by Education and Projects

Top Academic Credentials: Tsinghua Yao Class, MIT PhDs, UC Berkeley, represented by Long Fan, Wu Ming, Fang Jingyang

Traditional Financial Background: Investment banks, auditors, senior executives of listed companies, represented by Yang Zhou, Liu Bin, Huang Minqiang

Early OG Group: Blockchain pioneers entering between 2014-2017, represented by Da Hongfei, Jack Lu

From Star Public Chains to Stablecoin Failures: A History of Crashes

Yang Zhou (Flex Yang) is a co-founder of Babel Finance, graduated early from City University of Hong Kong, and worked at PwC Hong Kong before starting his entrepreneurial journey, gaining experience in financial auditing. In 2018, he co-founded Babel Finance (institutional crypto lending platform). In 2022, due to market collapse, it experienced a major failure, suspending withdrawals and becoming insolvent, with losses exceeding $700 million.

However, Yang Zhou did not step away from the stage. After the collapse, he returned to lead restructuring and founded Stables Labs (USDX stablecoin). This “post-collapse token issuance” pattern has sparked market anger, as many Babel Finance victims have yet to be compensated, while Yang Zhou has already begun raising funds for new projects. The launch of USDX stablecoin is seen as exploiting market demand for stablecoins rather than genuinely solving user pain points.

Da Hongfei is hailed as the “Father of Ethereum in China,” an early pioneer in China’s blockchain space and the founder of NEO. NEO gained fame during the 2017 bull market and was regarded as China’s version of Ethereum. However, with tightening regulations and technological iterations, the NEO ecosystem has gradually declined. Da Hongfei is also considered part of the “token issuing group,” with subsequent projects performing mediocrely.

Huang Minqiang’s early career was at ZheJiang NetEase (a listed company), progressing from programmer to CTO, later founding GXChain. Launched in 2017 (originally GXC, later upgraded to REI Network), aiming to build a trusted data exchange platform, which later spawned Gloff (a data-related sub-project) and Longbit (related to exchanges or platforms). This vertical integration from main chain to sub-projects and trading platforms has been questioned as a way to control liquidity and pricing within the ecosystem.

Technical Transition and Dual Narratives in Privacy Track

Li Ming (Mike Lee) is an early Chinese blockchain entrepreneur and founder of Delphy, who launched a decentralized prediction market DApp as early as 2017. Later, he founded GoPlus Security (Web3 security infrastructure providing real-time risk detection API), which exposed Binance’s VC token pipeline. This transformation from application to infrastructure demonstrates Li Ming’s keen market insight.

Lu Bin is an early Chinese blockchain entrepreneur, founder of MyKey (now MyKey Lab), initially focusing on Web3 wallets and identity management solutions, with multiple rounds of funding. Later, he founded DeGate (decentralized order book DEX emphasizing low slippage and high performance). The shift from wallets to DEX reflects a market trend moving from entry tools to trading infrastructure.

Jia Yongzheng is active as the founder of Findora (privacy blockchain focusing on zero-knowledge proofs and auditable privacy) and later founded Polyhedra Network (ZKJ, zero-knowledge proof infrastructure providing zkBridge cross-chain interoperability). His continued focus on privacy makes him relatively unique among token issuing groups, but the parallel operation of multiple projects still draws attention.