Exclusive Interview with Altius Co-Founder Annabelle Huang: At 30, managing 3 billion, surviving FTX and the loss of close friends, she learns to build through "loss"

In the world of cryptocurrency, growth is often measured in “multiples,” but maturity is usually measured by “losses.” Annabelle Huang, co-founder and CEO of Altius Labs, previously managed billions of dollars at Amber Group, traveling between VIP boxes at Chelsea’s stadium and skyscrapers in Tokyo. However, after the FTX collapse and the passing of co-founder TT, she decided to rebuild from the ashes—creating Altius Labs, a high-performance blockchain infrastructure born for the AI and machine economy era, which has secured $11 million in pre-seed funding.
(Background: Interview | Amber Group Partner Annabelle: Managing $4 billion, a Wall Street winner, but choosing to dive into crypto finance during a bear market)
(Additional context: Amber Group co-founder Tiantian passed away in his sleep)

Table of Contents

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• Amber Group’s setbacks as nourishment for Altius Labs
• The departure of a friend prompts rethinking market needs and product vision
• Why does Altius serve as an “execution layer”?
• How does Altius leverage technology to get Wall Street on board?
• How to avoid the “no native users” dilemma in blockchain? The answer is dedicated chains.
• From managing $3 billion to founding Altius: the journey and mindset

Annabelle Huang is co-founder and CEO of Altius Labs. The company is building a high-performance “Execution Layer” that can be integrated into any blockchain to significantly boost its performance. Previously, she was managing partner at Amber Group, responsible for crypto finance and institutional business. “I’ve been in DeFi since 2018,” Annabelle says. Her journey from teenage exuberance to adult awakening is the core of this interview.

Amber Group’s setbacks as nourishment for Altius Labs

Duoqu Alex: Looking back at the 2022 FTX collapse, Amber Group cut valuations and assets worth tens of millions or even over a billion dollars, including sponsorships like Chelsea FC. Reflecting now, how did this “deconstruction” experience shape your approach to building Altius? Did you intentionally keep Altius “boring” to avoid the overexpansion seen during Amber’s heyday?

Annabelle: That’s a great question. Altius is building a very different product, but I definitely apply all the lessons learned from Amber to this new venture.

Looking back, from 2018 to 2021 and into 2022, we experienced incredible growth. Everything felt unstoppable. We were very aggressive—investing heavily, sponsoring many initiatives, hiring a lot. Honestly, we expanded too quickly.

The 2022 FTX collapse was a shock therapy our system needed. I learned a lot from rebuilding Amber—bringing the company back to revenue and profitability after the crash—before leaving to start Altius. It was tough, but also a rich journey of self-discovery and learning how to build a company.

This time at Altius, I’ve taken a more conservative approach, avoiding overexpansion. We keep a very lean team—about 10 people. With current AI tools, you no longer need a huge team. Just a few star talents capable of handling multiple disciplines.

The departure of a friend prompts rethinking market needs and product vision

Duoqu Alex: As a founder, sometimes you focus only on metrics, but you’re still a person. In this industry, you lost a very important person—your old friend TT (Tiantian Kullander). How did this affect you? Did it influence your original motivation for building Altius?

Annabelle: I think that was one of the hardest moments in my life. On a personal level, because he was a trusted and respected friend; on a company level, because it was also Amber’s worst week.

Looking back, I don’t even remember how I got through it. But it definitely made me realize: Even if you do everything right—stay healthy, take care of yourself, keep fit—life can still be so short.

So, it gave me a new perspective. I started thinking: what else have I not tried but want to build? I kept recalling my early days entering crypto. I jumped into DeFi to build something meaningful.

I began to consider: Amber’s business has become very saturated, many institutions are entering the market. Liquidity is no longer the bottleneck for on-chain adoption. So what’s next? I started focusing on infrastructure, believing we need higher-performance infrastructure to support more on-chain use cases—perhaps high-frequency trading, payments, or other future applications—that’s what initially inspired me to create Altius.

In a way, I credit TT for reminding me why I entered this space in the first place.

Why does Altius serve as an “execution layer”?

Duoqu Alex: Before entering crypto, you worked at a bank structuring FX products—packaging risks into financial products for institutions. Now, Altius as an execution layer seems similar? How do you use that “old-school banking logic” to convince industry insiders that an execution layer can capture more value than those sexy new Layer 1s?

Annabelle: Altius’s products are indeed very different. But reflecting on my traditional finance background, it was a great training ground—teaching me to focus on details, stay professional, understand risks and returns deeply, and have a profound market insight.

After eight years, I see traditional finance merging with DeFi, institutions with crypto, Web2 with Web3. It feels like a “full circle.” Now, building Altius, I talk to many financial institutions. They know I understand their language, and I understand what they’re looking for.

What Altius really aims to do is package all our crypto and infrastructure expertise into a “box,” a tech stack, that allows anyone wanting to launch their own chain to do so quickly with high performance. You don’t need two years to build a high-performance L1 anymore. I believe we should build for use cases—whether for financial institutions, enterprises, or future AI Agents trading with each other. I want to ensure Altius can help them deploy the necessary infrastructure in weeks (not years), without building huge teams.

How does Altius leverage technology to get Wall Street on board?

Duoqu Alex: Altius’s CTO spent 15 years at Hudson River Trading (HRT), a top high-frequency trading firm. That world is “black box”—secure, private, closed. Web3 originated from Bitcoin—open, transparent. If tomorrow someone forks your code, how do you address this cultural clash? What’s Altius’s moat? Will your secret weapons be on GitHub?

Annabelle: Open source is a very new concept for us. Clearly, I come from banking, and my CTO from HRT, where most things are proprietary.

But the beauty of Web3 is that people can leverage what others have built. I think the real moat lies in: even with a standard open-source stack, if you’re not a blockchain-native or distributed systems engineer, you might not be able to use it correctly.

It’s a bit like the “Freemium” model in Web2. Many open-source stacks are free, but if you want enterprise-grade solutions or hosted services, you pay. That’s also a pattern we want to explore and refine in Web3.

How to avoid the “no native users” dilemma in blockchain? The answer is dedicated chains.

Duoqu Alex: You mentioned we don’t need more high-TPS public chains, but should focus on demand. Yet, you also said Altius can achieve nanosecond-level and parallel execution. Is that a contradiction? Before real high-frequency applications emerge, how do you prevent Altius from becoming a “tech-only, user-less” ghost project?

Annabelle: I want to clarify our baseline. The standards we set are to demonstrate what level other teams can achieve when working with us. We’re not launching our own chain (L1 or L2). We’re here to help existing or new chains reach their required performance.

More and more, we’re working with “purpose-built teams” that already have applications and want to build their own application-specific chains (App Chains) to better serve their use cases.

So I advocate: Stop building general-purpose high-performance chains. We need dedicated chains tailored for specific use cases. Some may require high performance or more robust infrastructure, and that’s where we come in to help realize that.

From managing $3 billion to founding Altius: the journey and mindset

Duoqu Alex: You entered the scene during the 2018 ICO era, experienced DeFi Summer. Before 30, you managed a $3 billion company and went through crazy times. Now, founding Altius, your role shifted from asset manager to builder. If I may be blunt, Amber Group might be like your “teenage years,” and now you’re an adult. What does Altius represent for you?

Annabelle: That’s a great question. I learned a lot at Amber, even though it was asset management and trading, building a company is a startup journey. I discovered my strengths and weaknesses, which helps me now in assembling the Altius team.

Most importantly, Amber’s experience taught me resilience and how to survive through ups and downs. Now I have a long-term vision for Altius, returning to my original motivation for entering this space.

Can blockchain replace part of the internet? What applications are meaningful? How do we build an open global architecture for human and AI interaction? I’ve seen too many shortsighted investments and projects. Ultimately, I want to build something that leaves a real legacy and makes a meaningful impact with my team.