(Bloomberg) -- Even by the to-the-moon standards of the crypto world, Justin Sun is known for making bold bets.

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There’s the 2017 initial coin offering in his native China, completed days before the government banned such deals. The $4.6 million he paid in 2019 for lunch with Warren Buffett, which irked authorities back home. And the stablecoin he launched last year, just as a similar instrument crashed in such spectacular fashion that it took down large swathes of the cryptoasset universe.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that the 32-year-old’s attempt to turn around crypto exchange Huobi Global hinges on a potentially risky strategy.

Sun says he doesn’t own any stock in the company, founded in China almost a decade ago, and his official title is “adviser” — yet he works at its main office in Singapore, sends mass memos to employees, represents it in media interviews and has used about $200 million of his own wealth to help prop it up so far this year. Bloomberg News reported in November that Sun allegedly paid about $1 billion through a Hong Kong-based asset manager for a controlling stake in Huobi.

His plan for regaining market share after two dismal years is likewise the source of controversy, at least inside Huobi. At issue is Sun’s approach to catering to Chinese customers, 18 months after the country outlawed all trading in cryptocurrencies.

The September 2021 ban on cryptocurrency trading within China’s borders was the culmination of a years-long crackdown on the sector. While the prohibition didn’t explicitly encompass Chinese citizens living abroad, it triggered seismic changes in the crypto industry.