The Ledger / Liu Wei
Liu Wei
◼ Origin
Born 1987 in Ningxiang, Hunan. While completing a master's degree in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech in 2012, he and two Shanghai Jiao Tong University classmates co-founded Shanghai miHoYo Network Technology (HoYoverse), the mobile gaming studio that became globally dominant through Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact, the latter generating over $4 billion in revenue in its first two years.
◼ Self-Made Verdict — YES
Liu Wei co-founded miHoYo in 2012 as a university student with no inherited capital; the company grew to global dominance through products he and his co-founders built from scratch. Self-made.
◼ Documented marks
01
Co-founder, Chairman, and President of Shanghai miHoYo Network Technology Co., Ltd. (HoYoverse), which operates Genshin Impact — grossing over $4 billion in its first two years — and Honkai Star Rail; controls approximately 22.6% of the private company
02
miHoYo's U.S. operations are conducted through Cognosphere LLC (d/b/a HoYoverse); the Singapore parent Cognosphere Pte. Ltd. and U.S. entity settled FTC charges in January 2025 for $20 million over COPPA violations and deceptive loot box probability disclosures in Genshin Impact
03
The FTC found that Cognosphere collected personal information from children under 13 without parental notice or consent, shared user IDs and device identifiers with third-party analytics and advertising firms, and misrepresented the probability of winning five-star items in Genshin Impact's gacha system
04
As part of the FTC settlement, miHoYo is banned from selling loot boxes to players under 16 without parental consent and must delete previously collected children's data
05
Genshin Impact uses a multi-step virtual currency conversion (dollars → Genesis Crystals → Primogems → Intertwined Fate) that the FTC found obscured the true cost of in-game purchases from consumers
No inheritance, or primary accounts documented for this billionaire yet.
◼ List of charges
Total sentence
0–0 years
That is
0.0–0.0 life sentences
(using 78 years as one life)
At $1 million per day
Liu Wei's fortune would last 12 years
0.2 lifetimes of luxury — before running out.
These are moral charges, not legal ones. The actual legal system has not — and will not — bring them.
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