In just a few days, floating profits reached 3.6 billion yuan. In early February 2026, the global silver market experienced a severe crash. After hitting a historic extreme of $120 per ounce, prices plummeted 40% within just three trading sessions. While countless speculators who had leveraged heavily at high levels to bet on a "silver version of GameStop" faced systematic liquidations, a long-lurking hunter, positioned behind a Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) seat, executed a precise strike. International media gave him a formidable nickname: "Beijing's Big Short." He is Bian Ximing, the actual controller of Zhongcai Futures. According to calculations by the Financial Times and Bloomberg, the Zhongcai Futures seat established a massive short position just before the recent silver price collapse. This contrarian bet has already yielded profits exceeding $500 million (approximately 3.6 billion yuan). This is not Bian Ximing's first major move. Estimates suggest that over three years, the Zhongcai Futures seat controlled by Bian Ximing has accumulated nearly $5 billion (approximately 36 billion yuan) in investment returns through a series of strategic trades: going long on gold, going long on copper, and then shorting silver. In Chinese financial history, no domestic seat has intervened as profoundly in the global commodity pricing nexus as Bian Ximing has. This is not merely a wealth creation myth; it represents a dimensional strike by Chinese industrial capital against global financial capital by exploiting "expectation gaps."

Although *Futures Daily* and Zhongcai Futures officially responded that "the positions held by the Zhongcai Futures seat are aggregates of client holdings and do not represent proprietary trading," stories about Bian Ximing have frequently entered the public spotlight. The $500 Million "Shorting" Legend Bian Ximing is known within trading circles for his regular "self-reflective" blog posts. He once wrote in a blog entry: "Traps and opportunities are everywhere—risk conceals opportunity, and opportunity harbors traps. The essence of investment is a game of survival." By the end of January 2026, these words became the most expensive footnote in the silver market. According to data from the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), the Zhongcai Futures seat began establishing a large-scale short position in silver in late January as prices accelerated towards a peak. By February 2nd, its held short positions in silver futures were equivalent to approximately 484 tons, with a notional value exceeding $1.5 billion at the time. This was seen as a "suicidal" move. At that moment, driven by concerns over US dollar credibility and speculative buying from Asian retail investors, silver's year-to-date gains had surpassed 24%, and market sentiment was extremely euphoric. However, Bian Ximing seemed to see through the weakness behind the prosperity—it was a bubble lacking fundamental support, purely fueled by capital. The end came swiftly. In early February, silver prices fell freely from their highs, crashing to around $70 per ounce within just a few days. According to foreign media estimates, although Zhongcai Futures suffered losses in a tentative shorting attempt last November, its net profit from this recent silver crash exceeded $500 million, thanks to the precise additional shorting at the end of January. Bloomberg, citing informed sources, reported that Zhongcai Futures held its short position with "firm conviction" during the crash, not exiting even during periods of price volatility. From Gold to Copper: The Hunter's Precise Timing If shorting silver was a sharp tactical strike, then the positioning in gold and copper over the past four years demonstrates Bian Ximing's profound strategic vision. Looking back to 2022, amidst the inflationary shadow following massive global central bank stimulus, Bian Ximing began building long positions in gold through Zhongcai Futures. He judged that global de-dollarization trends and geopolitical friction would push gold to new highs. His judgment proved correct. As gold broke through $2,400 per ounce and later soared to highs of $5,000, this multi-year long trade brought him staggering wealth. Bloomberg estimates that since early 2022, his bullish bets on gold futures have yielded profits of nearly $3 billion. In May 2025, while gold trading was still in full swing, Bian Ximing turned his attention to copper. His judgment was based on two certainties: first, the rigid demand for copper from the global energy transition (electric vehicles, data centers); second, supply disruptions caused by geopolitical maneuvering. He once stated publicly: "Copper is not only the lifeblood of the electrification era but also a key lever in geopolitical games." Even as other institutions retreated in panic over trade friction fears, he calmly held his position, ultimately realizing profits of several hundred million dollars. Against the macro backdrop of surging copper demand from the global energy transition and AI data center construction, he established the largest net long position in copper futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, holding nearly 90,000 tons of copper futures at its peak. Even as the clouds of trade war gathered and other investors fled in panic, he chose to increase his position. Financial Thinking Forged in "PVC Pipes" Unlike the high-profile hedge fund managers of Wall Street, Bian Ximing bears the distinct mark of a "first-generation Chinese industrialist." His starting point for wealth was not Wall Street PowerPoint presentations, but the factory floors of Zhuji, Zhejiang. In 1995, Bian Ximing founded Zhongcai Pipes, specializing in PVC plastic pipes. This was a classic supporting industry for large-scale infrastructure, consistently ranked among China's top 500 private enterprises. His background as an industrialist gave him two advantages not possessed by financial elites: first, an intuition for the supply-demand structure of industrial raw materials; second, an extreme aversion and sensitivity to cost fluctuations. In 2003, Bian Ximing acquired Zhongcai Futures. Over the next two decades, he did not turn the company into a pure intermediary, but evolved it into a highly efficient, logically rigorous top-tier hedge fund. That year, through the acquisition of Zhongcai Futures, Bian Ximing made the daring leap from industry to finance. More interestingly, this tycoon managing positions worth billions of dollars resides year-round in Gibraltar, far from the hustle of Shanghai, directing his vast commercial empire via video calls. He rarely gives interviews but is keen on writing "self-reflective" articles on the company's internal network, discussing human nature, markets, and survival. "A good investor must 'let go of ego, have fewer obsessions, choose the right target, and then be stubborn'," he wrote in one blog post. "Focus on trends when selecting targets, focus on timing when implementing projects, and focus on cost when maintaining projects." The corporate spirit of Zhongcai Futures also seems to align with Bian Ximing's philosophy—"Nine Deficiencies Form a Circle, Harmony in Unity." This calm, even slightly philosophical, investment style sets him in stark contrast to the Hunt Brothers, who once tried to corner the silver market. In the 1980s, the American Hunt brothers attempted to monopolize silver by throwing money at it, ultimately ending in bankruptcy. Bian Ximing, however, follows the rules, moving with the trend at the peak of extreme sentiment. He is not fighting the market; he is harvesting irrationality. Foreign media have dubbed him the "Anti-Hunt Brother"—he does not try to distort the market with financial muscle, but rather, like a crocodile, delivers a fatal blow when market sentiment reaches an extreme and detaches from fundamentals. The Fog of "Client Positions": Where Does the Truth Lie? In response to foreign media's astonishment at this series of masterful trades, *Futures Daily* and Zhongcai Futures officially stated: the positions held by the Zhongcai Futures seat are aggregates of client holdings and do not represent proprietary trading. Regarding market rumors of "Zhongcai Futures making over 3.6 billion yuan in floating profits from shorting silver," after consulting exchange data and interviewing the company, this information is inaccurate. The positions of the Zhongcai Futures seat are aggregates of client holdings. Its data shows there were indeed significant sell orders when silver prices were high in late January, which subsequently decreased as prices corrected in February. The company responded that changes in positions reflect client position adjustments and that it adheres to compliant operations. The rumor mistakenly attributes the collective actions of clients to proprietary trading by the company. In reality, a futures company seat is itself an aggregation of thousands of client positions. However, such a unified, massive, one-sided position that can withstand violent fluctuations might suggest a single guiding will behind it. Bloomberg and the FT, through data analysis, indicated that Zhongcai Futures' precious metals positions are primarily composed of Bian Ximing's own holdings and products directly managed by him. Whether this event is a "tall tale of profitable shorting" or the result of Bian Ximing's "personal foresight" remains a topic of ongoing industry attention. The Shift of Commodity Pricing Power to Asia While the market continues to debate the truth. A profound insight is emerging in media reports and online discourse. Some analysts believe that Bian Ximing's story is, in essence, about the "awakening" of global pricing power for Chinese private capital. For a long time, pricing power for gold, silver, and copper has been held in London (LME) and New York (CME). The script was written by Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, with Chinese companies often playing the role of victims, "buying at highs" and "cutting losses at lows." But Bian Ximing chose the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) as his main battlefield. Using China's vast physical trade as a moat and leveraging his deep understanding of local industrial cycles, he has inversely harvested global speculative capital. This may signal a shift in the logic of commodity pricing: from being driven by financial speculation to being driven by both industrial supply-demand and macro expectations. A widely circulated internal letter revealed that Bian Ximing once mentioned the goal of achieving 36.74 billion yuan in profit by 2032. This is not arrogance, but confidence based on his philosophy of "seeking my own nature, proving mastery through integrated logic." The Highest Realm of the Survival Game The words "trap" and "survival" appear frequently in Bian Ximing's blog posts. For him, the silver bull market of early 2026 was a period of great volatility, and contrarian positioning was the highest form of survival. He transformed from a factory owner in Zhuji, Zhejiang, into a hunter in transnational metals markets, but his core never changed—always searching for that most fundamental anchor of value overlooked by the majority. While global retail investors fret over next week's candlestick charts, Bian Ximing has already seen through the industrial cycles of the next decade. The title "Beijing's Big Short" is striking, but Bian Ximing is more like a sentinel. He waits for the market to go mad, then quietly takes his share of the interest. In this game of survival, he may already hold the ultimate winning formula.