Crypto Transformation: Uncovering Bitget's Six-Year "Makeover" Journey Through Multiple Data Sets
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Crypto Transformation: Uncovering Bitget's Six-Year "Makeover" Journey Through Multiple Data Sets
Multiple sets of data consistently indicate that in the rapidly evolving world of cryptocurrency, Bitget, a rising newcomer, is reshaping the CEX market landscape through aggressive expansion.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Nancy, PANews
Lionel Messi's popularity and commercial influence are undeniably world-class. Even as two top European football competitions clash, he continues to lead the Copa América in stealing the spotlight from the Euros. This legendary player, known for his "King of Football" status, has recently appeared on the cover of GQ, a globally renowned men’s fashion magazine—alongside Bitget, the cryptocurrency exchange platform.
As Messi’s official crypto partner, Bitget signed a cooperation agreement with him years ago under the leadership of its new CEO, Gracy Chen. Their shared values—“courage to face difficulties and an indomitable spirit”—are seen as key commonalities driving both parties’ growth. With contract trading volume ranking second globally, monthly traffic in the top five, and third place in net capital inflows, multiple data points indicate that Bitget, a rising star in the fast-evolving crypto industry, is reshaping the CEX market landscape through aggressive expansion.
“Inwardly committed to product innovation, outwardly attuned to user needs”—this may well be the culture ingrained in Bitget over the past six years.
27%: From Breakthrough to Flagship Product, Contract Market Share Rises to Nearly 27%
“The competition between companies today is not about products, but business models.” Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management, accurately captured the appeal of business models during the internet boom era. In earlier stages of the internet, successful business models were often accidental—companies didn’t need clear strategies or even user bases; they could succeed merely by promising profit targets. As Michael Lewis, author of *The Big Short*, once put it, business models were frequently used to “beautify immature plans.”
This mirrors the early development of crypto trading. However, after moving beyond the chaotic initial phase, building solid business models has become both a consensus and a challenge for both established and emerging exchanges. The crypto trading platform sector is highly lucrative, with increasingly diverse trading instruments and features enabling continuous monetization opportunities—such a profitable arena naturally attracts intense competition.
Historical cases confirm that consolidation among crypto platforms is exceptionally fierce. As a latecomer, Bitget chose the derivatives segment, laying a strong foundation in this hyper-competitive environment.
In 2018, Bitget faced setbacks at launch, entering the market during a bear cycle. Yet after analyzing market demand, it quickly pivoted—abandoning spot trading the following year to focus on the more in-demand futures contracts. Compared to the spot market, the contract market is a ruthless “money-eating beast,” yet the potential for amplified returns continues to draw investors en masse.
The introduction of “USDT-margined forward contracts” marked the beginning of Bitget’s comeback. As the world’s first platform offering both forward and inverse contracts, Bitget rapidly surpassed $100 million in trading volume. Building on this momentum, Bitget launched its one-click copy trading service—a turnkey solution allowing novice or beginner contract traders to automatically mirror top-performing traders without monitoring markets or manual execution—all trades remain transparent and open.
In recent years, Bitget has deepened its investment in copy trading functionality, continuously enhancing this core competitive advantage. Innovations include AI-powered contract quantitative robots providing high-quality portfolios and investment decisions; diversified copy trading enabling users to replicate multiple elite traders simultaneously with one fund; smart ratio-based copying automatically calculating follow costs based on experts’ capital allocation; and isolated contract copy accounts to mitigate risk. These iterative updates reflect Bitget’s user-centric operational philosophy. According to its website, as of July 23, Bitget has attracted over 165,000 trading experts, served more than 800,000 copy traders, and generated total copy trading profits exceeding $530 million.
Additionally, Bitget has rolled out several tools—including one-click reversal, take-profit/stop-loss, and instant close—to enhance trading efficiency.
Today, derivatives have become Bitget’s golden hallmark and a unique value proposition. Data from The Block shows that as of July 21, total open interest across all derivative exchanges reached $29.37 billion in Bitcoin terms, with Bitget holding over $7.18 billion—ranking second among major exchanges, just behind Binance. Moreover, in terms of market growth, Bitget’s share has surged over 149.3% year-on-year to nearly 27.4%.
Bitcoin open interest distribution across platforms. Data source: The Block
30 Million: Multi-Faceted Brand Building Achieves Strong Reputation, Monthly Visits Exceed 30 Million
On its journey to becoming a leader, Bitget has gained increasing recognition from users.
Website traffic is a direct indicator of popularity. According to CoinGecko, Bitget ranks fourth in the industry with over 30 million monthly visits. Similarweb data through May of this year reveals that over 76.7% of traffic comes directly—meaning visitors type in the URL or access via bookmarks—highlighting Bitget’s strong brand loyalty and awareness.
Top 5 CEXs by Monthly Visits. Source: CoinGecko
Behind Bitget’s brand value lies multi-dimensional branding efforts—an essential asset in market competition. As early as October 2022, Bitget signed a partnership with Messi worth hundreds of millions of RMB. This year, they renewed their collaboration and jointly released a new brand film, leveraging celebrity influence to expand brand reach and market value.
While expanding visibility, Bitget continues investing in brand reputation and loyalty. Public welfare initiatives are a crucial way for crypto firms to build social impact. Since May 2023, Bitget has launched Blockchain4Youth, a public education program committing $10 million over five years to encourage youth engagement with Web3 and blockchain technology and foster interest in digital assets. According to its website, Blockchain4Youth has engaged over 6,000 participants, partnered with more than 50 universities, hosted over 50 campus lectures, and issued over 2,000 certificates.
Similarly, just as stock prices in traditional finance reflect company value and growth potential amid complex market conditions—and generate significant attention—exchange platform tokens function similarly. For crypto investors, platform tokens offer real profit generation, value capture, and growth potential. Especially in this current bull market characterized by mutual skepticism, platform tokens backed by tangible value are more likely to earn investor favor and loyalty.
CoinGecko data shows that as of July 23, BGB’s market cap exceeded $1.64 billion, making it the fifth-largest CEX platform token. From the start of the year through July, BGB’s price rose approximately 102.1%, outperforming mainstream assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Of course, BGB’s rise is supported by ongoing enhancements from Bitget, including Launchpad offerings, Launchpool staking, VIP benefits, fee discounts, preferential token purchases, additional yield on wealth management products, and free withdrawals.
BGB Price Performance Over the Past Year. Source: CoinGecko
Bitget continues adding value to BGB. As Gracy Chen recently revealed in a community AMA, the exchange is considering future BGB buybacks and burn mechanisms. The “golden shovel” attributes of BGB will be strengthened—for example, LaunchPad will strictly curate only premium projects, while LaunchPool will prioritize launching more new projects this year, allowing BGB stakers to earn passive income. Recently, Bitget announced an upgrade to BGB’s smart contract address, further expanding rights for BGB holders and broadening its use cases within decentralized applications such as DeFi, DEX, and GameFi—offering greater value and opportunities for BGB holders.
560 Million: Innovative Products Drive Growth Flywheel, Single Quarter Sees Over $560 Million in Capital Inflows
Historically, a brand’s journey—from inception to expansion and transformation—resembles warfare. After surviving the early “fast-fish-eats-slow-fish” era of crypto, Bitget wasn’t necessarily the fastest fish. Yet since its founding, it has amassed over 25 million registered users across more than 100 countries and regions. In terms of capital flows, DeFiLlama data shows that since the beginning of 2024, Bitget has mostly experienced positive monthly inflows, with net asset inflows reaching $779 million in the first half of the year. Specifically, CryptoRank.io data indicates that in Q2 alone, Bitget ranked third among CEXs with $561 million in inflows.
Source: CryptoRank.io
In contrast to competing in the crowded CEX space by churning out “assembly-line” products, Bitget is succeeding by focusing on understanding user sentiment, uncovering real needs, and applying a “deep dredging, low embankment” business model to thrive in the crypto trading ecosystem.
Return on investment is what matters most to investors—and is a key driver for user retention and attracting new capital. After gaining traction through contract trading, prioritizing user interests remains central to Bitget’s strategy for expanding into new markets.
In 2022, Bitget launched Launchpool, a new asset mining product allowing users to stake major assets like BTC, ETH, and BGB to participate in new project airdrops and earn staking rewards. According to Bitget’s official site, Launchpool has listed 67 projects, attracting over $1.8 billion in total participation.
In 2023, Bitget introduced Launchpad, a low-risk initial offering platform. This popular feature tests each exchange’s ability to identify high-quality projects, resulting in varying returns. According to PANews, Bitget launched seven Launchpad projects in 2023, achieving an average maximum return of 68.7x. In 2024, the single Launchpad project so far delivered a peak return of 566%. Historical performance demonstrates Bitget’s strong wealth-generation capability, which in turn boosts platform traffic. To reach more users, Bitget has also introduced innovative mechanics like group-buying and referral cashback on Launchpad.
This year, Bitget launched PoolX—an upgraded, year-round version of Launchpool—that allows users to earn rewards in hot tokens by staking designated assets without sacrificing liquidity. So far, 65 projects have been listed, with over 350,000 users participating, achieving an average annualized yield of 12.77%, and total staked assets amounting to around $1 billion.
Moreover, Bitget continues innovating to enrich the user experience. Recently, it launched pre-market OTC trading to resolve trust issues in off-exchange transactions, ensuring secure deals for buyers and sellers. Currently, 20 projects are live, with 35,000 users completing trades totaling $13.6 million. Its Telegram trading signal tool is a specialized interactive solution for signal providers in Telegram groups, capable of automatically posting signals and capturing real-time analytics on group operations. The Genesis Program allows users to join simulated trading contests without investing capital, offering chances to win up to 10,000 USDT and dual rewards. Additionally, Bitget actively identifies trending narratives and high-potential assets—launching a $20 million TON ecosystem fund, offering fee rebates to the first 10,000 users depositing LayerZero (ZRO) tokens, and listing 34 new tokens in June alone—demonstrating its sharp market responsiveness.
According to Gracy Chen, spot trading reform is now a top priority—focusing on strengthening listing advantages, improving market depth and liquidity, deepening partnerships with leading market makers, and maintaining strong wealth-generation capabilities in spot trading.
CEX Market Share Growth in H1 2024. Data source: CCData
Security is another critical concern for users. In response, Bitget enhances transparency by publishing monthly proof-of-reserves reports and established a $300 million protection fund to safeguard user assets—the first of its kind in the industry. The June report showed the fund’s average monthly valuation was $429 million.
Notably, to meet growing demand for on-chain trading and secure asset storage, major exchanges are increasingly entering the wallet space—a domain believed to unlock new traffic growth. Bitget is no exception. Bitget Wallet is a multifunctional, non-custodial Web3 wallet supporting over 100 blockchains and more than 250,000 cryptocurrencies, offering competitive exchange rates and seamless DApp integration.
From its early rapid expansion—akin to a fast-spreading weed seizing opportunity—to its current “deep dredging, low embankment” growth strategy, Bitget has undergone constant transformation over the past six years in the crypto space. Yet one principle remains unchanged: a user-first philosophy.
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