Beijing’s Big Short: Meet The Chinese “Anti Hunt Brother” Billionaire Betting Against Silver Bulls

Born in 1963 in Zhuji, Zhejiang Province, right in the middle of some pretty chaotic times in China’s history, reclusive billionaire Bian Ximing grew up to become a commodity titan after making some huge bets in the metals markets over the past few years.

In 2003, he bought Zhongcai Futures Co., which would become the centerpiece of his trading empire.

Bian spends much of his time in Gibraltar, and previously made nearly $3 billion from bullish bets on Shanghai Futures Exchange gold contracts since early 2022.

It is unknown if he has closed any of that position out.

In May 2025, the billionaire went all-in on copper, believing the metal is vital for China’s tech-heavy future and the global green energy push. Even with market volatility and political tensions, sources confirmed Bian’s massive copper position – nearly 90,000 tons – on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, confident that copper prices will climb.

It is unknown if he has closed any of that position out.

And now, Bloomberg reports that he has now built the bourse’s largest net short position in silver, according to Bloomberg analysis of exchange data and people with knowledge of his investments. They asked not to be named as the information is not public.

Bian’s big short comes with significant risk, and he has been forced to liquidate some positions at a loss in a volatile silver market.

From August last year, he built a long position in silver that generated more than 1.3 billion yuan in profit, according to calculations based on exchange data.

In November, however, he began shifting his position, attempting to call the top of the rally with tentative moves that occasionally left him on the losing side of trades.

From last week, however, Bian held his short position with conviction, spreading his exposure across longer-dated contracts and holding it through upward price swings.

Bian, through his brokerage Zhongcai Futures, began ramping up silver shorts in the final week of January, according to exchange data. 

Exchange data showed Zhongcai’s silver short position surged to about 18,000 lots on Jan. 28.

It climbed further to about 28,000 lots on Jan. 30, when the metal in Shanghai reached an all-time high.

But he now holds a short that stands at about 450 tons of silver, or 30,000 contracts – so the metal’s sharp drop since last week has resulted in a paper gain of about 2 billion yuan ($288 million).

Including previous losses, Bian stands to make a net profit of around 1 billion yuan, based on his position and prices at the end of Tuesday.

Silver is again sliding in Thursday trade and has tumbled more than 40% from record highs a week ago – almost certainly significantly increasing Bian’s proceeds.

Bian’s “Big Short” is the antithesis of the billionaire Hunt Brothers’ bullish cornering of the silver market in the last 1970s (that didn’t end well for them).

Will ‘the herd’ go full ‘Gamestop’ on this newly exposed massive short position, which unlike so many of the myths about JPMorgan being short the precious metals, Bian is actually short… in size… for now.