Bitget CEO's New Year Open Letter: Innovate and Continue Riding the Bull Market Waves
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Bitget CEO's New Year Open Letter: Innovate and Continue Riding the Bull Market Waves
Ten years from now, when we look back, I believe Bitget's footprints will be deeply etched on the path of industry development.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Dear Bitget Team, Partners, and Users,
The year 2024 has just concluded—a year filled with pivotal moments in our crypto jungle adventure. We witnessed history unfold: at the start of the year, the long-anticipated spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved by the U.S. SEC, opening new doors for high-net-worth individuals, institutional investors, and retail users alike to access Bitcoin. This marked a turning point where traditional finance began significantly influencing the once-niche world of crypto assets. On April 19, Bitcoin underwent its scheduled halving event, followed soon after by Ethereum’s own ETF approval. As the year closed, U.S. elections brought pro-crypto policies into the spotlight, and the final outcome further boosted market confidence. In early December, Bitcoin surged past $100,000 for the first time, while stablecoin market capitalization exceeded $200 billion—ushering in a new peak for the entire crypto industry.
It was a year of volatility, challenges, and achievements—an unforgettable journey. For me personally, 2024 was also significant: I took on the role of CEO at Bitget in May, stepping onto a larger platform to lead an exceptional team and drive meaningful change. For Bitget, this year was equally transformative—facing both trials and triumphs. Today, we serve over 45 million users and firmly hold our position as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange globally. Our sustained rapid growth can be attributed to getting several key things right:
Team Upgrades
In 2024, our team expanded significantly, especially with the addition of key executives: Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Hon Ng helped us build a more professional legal and compliance team; Chief Business Officer (CBO) Min Lin accelerated our global business expansion; Lawrence, Vice President overseeing listing operations, graduated from the London School of Economics (LSE) and previously worked at two leading exchanges—he joined Bitget in September and has since led efforts to identify high-quality assets. Additionally, Jiayin Xie, who joined us last Christmas, now leads our Chinese-speaking markets and doubles as our top-tier “customer service” representative for that region.
As the saying goes, "A wise bird chooses its tree wisely, and a capable minister picks his master carefully." Top talent in the crypto jungle has no shortage of options—they seek environments where they can thrive and companies with real potential. I'm proud that those who have chosen to join Bitget share not only expertise but also a results-driven mindset, a vision to change the world, and a commitment to long-term thinking.
Listing Strategy
Since restarting our spot trading services in 2023 and making it a core focus, Bitget has actively broadened the range of supported high-quality crypto projects. As of December 30, 2024, Bitget supports over 800 crypto assets.
Our research and listings teams closely monitor industry trends, swiftly identifying and launching top tokens during surges such as the TON ecosystem boom and the Meme coin frenzy. Among non-first-listed spot assets launched by Binance like PNUT and ACT in 2024, over 70% debuted first on Bitget. This year, we also curated 21 Launchpool projects offering user rewards—including star projects like ZK, ENA, CATS, and SWELL. The average annualized return across all Bitget Launchpool projects in 2024 reached 89%, with the highest hitting 329%.
BGB
This year, our platform token BGB delivered outstanding performance—up tenfold from its yearly low and over a hundredfold since inception, earning its title as a true "100x" asset. As the cornerstone of Bitget's ecosystem, holding BGB unlocks benefits including fee discounts, zero-withdrawal fees, participation in Launchpool staking, and VIP tier upgrades. Moreover, we recently announced the merger of BWB into BGB, establishing BGB as the sole utility token across both Bitget Exchange and Bitget Wallet. On December 27, Bitget released an updated whitepaper outlining a clear buyback-and-burn mechanism, followed by the immediate execution of the first burn—destroying 800 million tokens, or 40% of total supply—laying a stronger foundation for 2025.
Product Iteration
This year, Bitget rolled out multiple product updates and introduced innovative features that impressed users. Pre-market trading allows early access to promising assets before official listings, while LaunchX is a new token launchpad tailored for Web3 communities. Looking ahead, we plan to roll out a unified account system, API enhancements, lending tools for institutional clients, and deeper AI integration—all aligned with our "Trade Smarter" philosophy to make trading smarter and more efficient. None of this would be possible without our dedicated tech and product teams working around the clock. A big round of applause to them.
Outlook for 2025: Innovate and Ride the Bull Market Forward
In 2025, while consolidating our existing products and services, we will focus on three strategic areas: institutional and VIP services, BGB and PayFi development, and continued leadership in security and compliance.
Institutional & VIP Services: Building a More Diversified User Base
Whether you're a market maker, broker, asset manager, or large financial institution—we welcome you to trade on Bitget. We’ll provide enhanced compliance support (KYB/KYC), along with 24/7 dedicated service for institutional clients, ensuring any technical or trading issues are resolved promptly. Institutionally, clients will enjoy lower fees, faster execution speeds, and higher trading limits to seize market opportunities and maximize profitability. Our API infrastructure will also be upgraded to ensure seamless and stable connectivity.
Additionally, we'll expand financial product offerings, introducing OTC desk services for optimal pricing and minimal slippage, and low-interest lending products allowing BTC and major assets as collateral—providing institutions and VIPs greater flexibility in capital allocation. The unified account function will enter market testing in Q1, enabling shared funding pools between spot and futures accounts, dramatically improving capital efficiency. We’ll also offer exclusive data dashboards so institutional clients can monitor real-time trading metrics and manage portfolios effectively.
We’ll also introduce more customized wealth management solutions and personalized asset allocation strategies to help users grow their wealth. Strengthening the VIP brand is another priority—we aim to elevate its value and visibility through premium events and targeted marketing campaigns. In 2023 and 2024, Bitget hosted numerous private sessions for VIP clients, covering topics such as ETH ecosystem developments around the Cancun upgrade and early insights into emerging meme coin trends. These initiatives will continue in 2025.
Last December, I met some of our European VIP users in Prague—many had previously been VIPs at other major exchanges, with trading volumes exceeding hundreds of millions. When I asked why they chose Bitget, one replied: “Because only at Bitget do I feel truly valued. At other platforms, there’s no account manager reaching out, no one inviting me to meetups, sharing meals, enjoying beautiful places—or even meeting the CEO. I felt your sincerity. Now, I only use Bitget.” Moments like these deeply move me and fill me with pride for my team.
BGB & PayFi: BGB as Core Currency, PayFi as Its Payment Layer
2025 will mark the breakout year for BGB’s ecosystem, empowering both the broader crypto space and the Bitget community. We’re expanding BGB’s utility not just within Bitget’s exchange and wallet platforms, but also across more on-chain ecosystems and off-chain payment scenarios. On-chain, we’ll partner with leading ecosystems and DeFi protocols to enable BGB staking yields and use BGB as collateral for borrowing.
Offline, via the Bitget Card, users will spend BGB globally on dining, travel, fuel, shopping, and more—with added discounts. BGB holders will unlock premium perks such as cashback, reduced fees, and premium services. We believe in a future where crypto becomes part of everyday life—practical, accessible, and widely adopted.
Security & Compliance: The Foundation for Mass Crypto Adoption
Security remains Bitget’s top priority. In 2022, we launched the Bitget Protection Fund to safeguard user assets under extreme circumstances. As of November 2024, the fund holds 6,500 BTC, valued at over $600 million, making it the second-largest user protection fund among centralized exchanges. We also introduced Proof of Reserves in December 2022, updating the data monthly to guarantee at least a 1:1 reserve ratio. According to November 2024 figures, Bitget’s overall reserve ratio stands at 137%, with BTC reserves nearing 200%.
In 2024, we strengthened our compliance framework under the leadership of newly appointed CLO Hon Ng. Our compliance team now exceeds 70 professionals—doubling in size over the past year. By November 2024, Bitget became the third exchange to meet UK FinProm standards and obtained licenses or completed registrations in Australia, Italy, Poland, and Lithuania. Our goal is to secure key regulatory approvals across Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia in 2025, enabling sustainable growth in these regions. We believe regulation is a powerful catalyst for mainstream adoption, and we remain committed to investing heavily in this domain.
Looking back from our founding in 2018 to today, both the Bitget team and the wider crypto industry have undergone remarkable transformations. Back then, Bitget was a small startup of just a few dozen people, facing repeated failures and nearly running out of cash. The outside world largely doubted or outright rejected crypto. Even leaders like Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, publicly criticized Bitcoin and digital assets. In 2017, Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a “fraud” during an investor call and said he’d fire any employee using company funds to invest in it. Larry Fink similarly dismissed Bitcoin in October 2017 as merely an “index of money laundering.”
By 2021, both JP Morgan and BlackRock had shifted their stance. Jamie Dimon stated that while he still didn’t personally favor Bitcoin, he wouldn’t stop JP Morgan’s clients from trading it. In fact, JP Morgan began offering crypto investment products for institutional clients and even launched its own digital currency, JPM Coin.
Fast forward to 2024—Larry Fink and BlackRock successfully launched a spot Bitcoin ETF, an event arguably as impactful as the U.S. election in driving the bull market. This shift reflects how crypto has moved from the fringes to the mainstream and signals growing institutional acceptance of Bitcoin.
From skepticism to misunderstanding, and finally to acceptance—Bitcoin and the crypto industry have taken over a decade to get here.
Bitget’s journey mirrors this evolution—from a small team of dozens to a global, diverse organization of 1,753 employees; from a grassroots project struggling through setbacks to a billion-dollar ecosystem. It hasn’t been easy. Today, as CEO, what fills me with the most pride isn't just the numbers—it’s the growth and transformation of our team and the industry itself.
Over the past two years, we’ve recruited many top international talents. Every two weeks, we hold a two-hour meeting with regional leaders—over ten area managers report in each time, each with a different English accent. It brings me joy. Two and a half years ago when I first joined, most attendees were Chinese speakers. Now, our meetings bring together diverse English accents from around the world. Standing among them, I reflect on the massive financial firms and internet giants I once interacted with—today, Bitget increasingly resembles them. We now have internationalized, systematic management, efficient processes, and, most importantly, a unified mission driving everyone forward.
But I also know clearly: despite our progress, we must not become complacent. Acceptance is not the finish line—it’s just the beginning. What comes next? How does the crypto industry evolve from being accepted to being respected?
I believe the answer lies in genuine technological innovation. Beyond stablecoins and exchanges, the crypto space still lacks killer applications with hundreds of millions of users. During a conversation with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about SocialFi, I asked if any SocialFi product had caught his interest. His answer was “No.” Even though blockchain has well-known projects like Farcaster and Friend.tech, they haven’t captured attention beyond niche circles. Only when we build SocialFi, DePIN, and GameFi apps with tens of millions of users will we truly demonstrate how blockchain empowers traditional social networks, mapping software, hardware, and gaming. We need “killer apps” that make blockchain’s value as obvious as AI’s.
If you had asked me two years ago when that moment of universal recognition would arrive, I might have hesitated, uncertain. But today, I’ve never been more certain: that day is closer than ever. I firmly believe the key lies in earning trust—from the public, regulators, traditional finance, and mainstream markets—and in building real, user-centric, mass-market applications. We’re already seeing blockchain solve real problems in payments. Compared to the current SWIFT-based system that combines information and fund flows, blockchain offers clear advantages in cross-border transactions—real-time settlement, lower costs, and greater transparency.
As members of the Bitget team, each of us is part of this historic journey. Long-term success doesn’t come from moving fast, but from walking steadily. We all grew up hearing the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Smart people often become the hare—but today, I choose to be the tortoise: committed to long-termism, doing what’s fundamentally right rather than what’s immediately rewarding. No matter our pace, as long as we persist, one day more people will look back and see our efforts—see how the crypto industry rose from nothing, step by step changing the world, transforming perceptions from dismissal and misunderstanding to acceptance and respect.
Every step we take lays a foundation stone for the crypto industry. Today, Bitget may not lead every wave of innovation, but each product update and strategic decision paves the way for that future. Our team, our partners, and every single user can take pride in our collective effort.
Thank you to every builder—past, present, and future—who contributes to this industry. Your perseverance and dedication give us courage to face challenges and embrace the future. You’re not just laying the groundwork—you’re writing the next chapter of crypto’s story.
Ten years from now, when we look back, I believe Bitget’s footprints will be deeply etched into the path of industry development. Despite obstacles and detours, each step will stand clear and firm. This is a journey of relentless exploration and bold transformation—one that belongs to every builder.
Gracy Chen
Written at the Start of 2025
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