Meta Acquisition Puts Spotlight on ManusAI Founder’s Early Bitcoin Roots
Xiao Hong, the founder of Butterfly Tech behind the AI agent app Manus, was an early bitcoin advocate and holder for more than a decade before his company became Meta’s $2 billion acquisition target.
Manus drew widespread attention after Meta agreed to acquire the AI agent startup in a deal valued in $2 billions, a transaction that underscored Big Tech’s growing appetite for autonomous AI tools capable of executing complex tasks across software environments.
The app, developed by Butterfly Tech, is positioned as a general-purpose AI agent designed to automate workflows and interact with multiple digital systems, placing it squarely within Meta’s broader push into advanced AI infrastructure and consumer-facing agents.
Following news of the acquisition, users on X began circulating evidence of Xiao’s long-standing involvement in bitcoin, according to posts and archived writings resurfacing on social media this week.
An article published in 2013 under Xiao’s name, written in Chinese and hosted on a software-focused blog, introduces bitcoin to internet users and explains how to use bitcoin wallets. At the end of the article, Xiao included a bitcoin address for readers who wished to tip him, a common practice among early bitcoin proponents at the time.
The resurfaced material prompted commentary from Mao Shixing, also known by his online alias DiscusFish. Mao, a co-founder of mining pool operator f2pool and digital asset custody firm Cobo, said in a post on X that Xiao had been involved in bitcoin as early as 2013.
In his post, Mao stated that Xiao was among a group of interns recruited at Huazhong University of Science and Technology during that period, and that they collaborated on early bitcoin-related projects. Mao framed Xiao’s trajectory—from bitcoin in the early 2010s to AI agents more than a decade later—as emblematic of how technology cycles and company boundaries have shifted over time, with talent moving fluidly between emerging sectors.
Mao also shared a screenshot of a social media profile attributed to Xiao, in which Xiao describes himself as an “infp, founder, tool maker, btc hodler.” The profile further fueled discussion online about the overlap between early bitcoin communities and today’s AI startup ecosystem.
