Malaysian Chinese: The Invisible Protagonists of the Crypto World

Authors: Yanz, June, TechFlow

When people talk about the protagonists of the crypto world, they always think of Silicon Valley geeks, Wall Street capital, investment institutions in Singapore and Hong Kong, and mainland developers, but few people turn their attention to Malaysian Chinese.

They haven't appeared on the cover of Fortune like SBF, nor have they been labeled the "richest Chinese" like Changpeng Zhao.

They rarely accept spotlight interviews and often even "hide" on Twitter.

However, when you really dismantle the landscape of the encryption industry, you will be surprised to find that:

• the world's largest encryption data platform, CoinGecko, was born in Kuala Lumpur;

• Etherscan, which is indispensable to the Ethereum ecosystem, was built by Malaysian Chinese;

• the bull market's popular narrative "AI+Crypto" leaf="">Virtuals Protocol, also from a Malaysian Chinese team.

• Solana Ecosystem Liquidity Center Jupiter, from Malaysia.

These projects are not scraps that can be replaced at any time, but are already the infrastructure of the crypto industry and the spark of a new narrative.

Without Malaysian Chinese, today's crypto industry would be missing a pair of "eyes", a "map", and even a future "path of exploration". In 2014, Mt. Gox collapsed, plunging the crypto world into darkness. Amidst the market's turmoil, Bobby Ong and TM Lee founded CoinGecko with $100 in seed capital. One an economics major, the other a programmer. Their chance meeting led them to a shared vision: the market desperately needed a transparent, reliable data platform. Thus, Coingecko was born amidst a market crisis. "We want to be a company that serves everyone in the world," they summarized their original aspiration years later. This proved to be a sound strategy. Leveraging its Trust Score algorithm and extensive coverage of niche markets, Coingecko quickly became a daily must-have for investors. Ten years later, it now records over 17,000 tokens, and its API is widely used by platforms like Trezor and Metamask. Around the same time, another young Malaysian, Matthew Tan, was focusing on Ethereum. He previously ran a blockchain search engine called Blockscan. When Ethereum smart contracts emerged, he keenly identified a critical issue that had been largely overlooked: existing block explorers could only handle simple peer-to-peer transactions and were completely unable to cope with the complexity posed by smart contracts. So, almost with a gamble, he rebranded Blockscan as Etherscan.

"This is no longer a transfer of value from point A to point B. There are too many things that need to be displayed by a search engine."

He decisively transformed and upgraded Blockscan, an early blockchain search engine that had been in operation for two years, into Etherscan, and redesigned the underlying architecture specifically to address the complexity of smart contracts.

Today, Etherscan has evolved from a simple tool into the de facto standard of the Ethereum ecosystem, and almost every Ethereum user cannot do without it. With the advent of the multi-chain era, the successive launches of products like BscScan, PolygonScan, and ArbiScan have further solidified this Malaysian Chinese's dominance in the blockchain explorer space. It's 2021. With the heat of DeFi's summer still lingering, a young man named TN Lee has set his sights on a more complex problem: how to make yields more predictable and tradable? With a background in computer science and a deep understanding of the logic of financial derivatives, he proposed a concept that seemed crazy at the time: tokenizing returns. He separated future returns into principal tokens (PT) and yield tokens (YT), allowing users to trade them independently. This seemingly simple innovation actually took several years, and in 2021, Pendle Protocol emerged. Also in 2021, young developer Siong set his sights on Solana. He saw the potential for high performance, but also the challenges of fragmented liquidity and excessive slippage. So, he and his team created Jupiter, a transaction aggregator that automatically finds the optimal path using an intelligent routing algorithm. From humble beginnings, by 2024, both Pendle and Jupiter had achieved success in their respective ecosystems. Pendle became a leading DeFi protocol with a total value locked (TVL) exceeding $10 billion, while Jupiter became a liquidity center in the Solana ecosystem, with daily trading volume regularly exceeding $1 billion and the total token market capitalization briefly exceeding $10 billion. The entrepreneurial story didn't end there. In 2024, Weekee Tiew, who had previously worked at Boston Consulting Group, turned his attention to AI. He once founded the gaming guild PathDAO, which was valued at $600 million. However, it hit rock bottom in the bear market and struggled to find a way forward. In 2024, he transformed and launched Virtuals Protocol, focusing on the creation and distribution of AI agents. Source: LinkedIn Virtuals Protocol's token, $VIRTUAL, reached a market capitalization of over $4.5 billion in January 2025, becoming one of the most iconic projects at the intersection of AI and crypto. It wasn't until its meteoric rise and appearances on numerous podcasts, including Weekee Tiew, that people were surprised to discover it was originally a Malaysian project. Pendle, Jupiter, Aevo, and Drift are also from Malaysia.

On Twitter, everyone seems to have reached a consensus that

Bridge-builders

"I still have many Malaysian friends, but they don't talk much on social platforms."

Compared to well-known entrepreneurs, more Malaysian Chinese are scattered throughout the crypto industry like tendons and veins, stringing together flexible limbs. Their roles are also like meridians, connecting markets with different cultural backgrounds.

Malaysian Chinese are natural bridge-builders.

It has been five years since Cova, a Malaysian Chinese, started working in the crypto industry. As she communicated more with practitioners from all over the world, she truly realized the unique advantages of Malaysian Chinese in the industry.

"I think Malaysian Chinese are born translators. Under normal circumstances, a Malaysian Chinese can speak at least three languages, not including dialects - Chinese, Malay, English, and some even speak Japanese and Korean."

Since kindergarten, they have lived in an environment where Chinese, English and Malay are intertwined. In addition to each person's different background, they also speak Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka... This "multi-threaded" language ability allows them to thrive in the team - they can follow the hot trends in Europe and the United States, take care of the Southeast Asian market, cooperate with the international team, and connect with customers from all over the world. This linguistic talent is particularly valuable in the crypto world. Virtuals Protocol founder Weekee Tiew can showcase how Virtuals truly integrates AI and crypto in his English podcasts to European and American listeners, and directly explain Virtuals's grand vision to Chinese audiences at offline events. This multilingualism allows him to simultaneously serve developer communities from diverse cultural backgrounds. At the intersection of cultures, Cova also believes that Malaysian Chinese and Singaporeans integrate more quickly. "For example, when it comes to American-promoted projects, meme culture, and the cultures of lesser-known countries, Malaysian Chinese and Singaporeans are particularly quick to assimilate and understand them." The cultural DNA of Malaysian Chinese is like a master key, unlocking the door to multiple international markets. However, this unique multilingual advantage also brings an unexpected side effect: a blurred identity. Whenever Malaysian Chinese run their own Twitter accounts or launch crypto projects, they face a crucial decision: should they use English or Chinese as their primary medium of communication? This choice often determines the audience and market reach they can reach. A typical example is that, without explicit explanation, you might find it difficult to guess that the well-known Chinese-speaking influencer, @Wolfy_XBT, is actually Malaysian Chinese. Similarly, well-known English-speaking influencers @ahboyash and @sandraaleow are also from Malaysia. More importantly, to gain wider recognition and acceptance in the global market, many Malaysian Chinese entrepreneurs intentionally or unintentionally downplay their regional identity. They want their products to be seen as "international" solutions rather than projects from a specific country. This strategy is often wise commercially, but it also leads to a regrettable consequence: most users are unaware that these world-changing products actually originate in Malaysia. When you use Etherscan to query Ethereum transactions, you might not think it's the work of a Malaysian Chinese team. When you trade tokens on Jupiter or study Pendle's revenue strategy, you might be more likely to believe it's the work of an elite European or American team. Their "invisible" status demonstrates the adaptability of Malaysian Chinese in a globalized world, but it also reflects the complexities of their identity and market positioning. This blurred identity hides a deeper issue: brain drain. Many Malaysian Chinese have chosen to leave their homeland to pursue careers. This fertile land continues to cultivate generations of talent, but due to various practical factors—whether it's the policy environment, market size, or the degree of internationalization—this talent is often forced to migrate to overseas markets. They shine on the global stage, yet few know their true origins. This "invisible success" demonstrates the adaptability of Malaysian Chinese in a globalized world, but it also represents the price this group has paid for globalization. They are the best bridge builders, yet also the builders whose identities are most easily forgotten. Changemakers: Conscientious, down-to-earth, and contented—these are the common traits of most Malaysian Chinese. They rarely publicize their achievements on social media, preferring to let their solid work speak for itself. This low-key approach to work is deeply connected to their historical experiences. During the "Southeast Asian" migration of the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese people migrated from China's southeastern coastal areas to the Malay Peninsula. Faced with a completely unfamiliar environment and culture, they relied on diligence and ingenuity to find a place to survive within the British colonial economy. However, even after achieving success in business through their hard work, the colonial government's "divide and rule" policy consistently excluded the Chinese from political power. After Malaysia's independence in 1957, the "Malay supremacy" political ideology and the subsequent implementation of the New Economic Policy further restricted Chinese opportunities in education, employment, and business through a quota system. University admissions were limited, government jobs had entry requirements, and even starting a business faced various policy barriers. This long-term institutional pressure shaped a unique survival philosophy for the Chinese in Malaysia: since they couldn't change the broader environment, they focused on what they could control. They learned to survive in the cracks, prove their worth through their own strength, and remain resilient in the face of adversity. "Malaysian Chinese have always been subject to policy repression, so most people keep their heads down and work hard, focused on making money." This historical experience has fostered a resilience that has become a unique advantage in the challenging crypto industry. When the market plummets, they don't panic; when projects encounter difficulties, they find solutions rather than complain; when opportunities arise, they quietly seize them rather than hype them up... However, the process of focusing on their work, profiting from pursuing their dreams, and proving their strength through successful projects—in turn, changing the outside world's stereotype of the Malaysian Chinese community—is not always smooth sailing. Early Malaysian crypto projects had a less than rosy reputation, with many suspected of market manipulation and pyramid schemes. A more tangible example is Cova's observation that Malaysian Chinese are easily perceived by partners as "swindlers" who "set up the project," a bias that creates an additional cost of trust when establishing a business. This negative perception has historical roots. Malaysia's early lack of fintech regulation has indeed created numerous gray areas, where some unscrupulous individuals exploited regulatory gaps to engage in illegal fundraising and fraud. Many projects touting "blockchain innovation" have repeatedly profited from the loss of investors, not only harming investors but also casting a shadow over Malaysia's entire tech startup ecosystem. Worse still, these negative stories often spread faster and more widely than positive ones. When people hear the term "Malaysian project," their first reaction may not be technological innovation, but rather "beware of being scammed." This stereotype has become an invisible obstacle that all Malaysian Chinese entrepreneurs must face. But times are changing. The global success of projects like CoinGecko, Etherscan, Pendle, Jupiter, and Virtuals Protocol is putting high-quality Malaysian projects in the international spotlight, gradually improving global users' perception of Malaysian tech projects. "I think these down-to-earth builders have proven during these past two or three bull markets that they aren't the stereotypical pyramid schemers, but rather are building large, international projects," said a Malaysian Chinese industry insider. Across cycles, this shadow army has consistently forged its own path in the industry, building businesses, building bridges, and realizing dreams... until they are seen, until they are recognized, or, "Just make money."