Interview with Bitget Wallet CEO: Wallets Are Not Gateways, and Moats Are a False Proposition
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Interview with Bitget Wallet CEO: Wallets Are Not Gateways, and Moats Are a False Proposition
Good products should return to the level of user needs, allowing users to find what they are looking for.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsFrom internet entrepreneur to leader of a Web3 company, Karry, CEO of Bitget Wallet, embodies the development trajectory of China's internet industry.
After experiencing the waves of PC and mobile internet, why did this seasoned professional with 15 years of internet experience ultimately choose the Web3 path? In the fiercely competitive crypto wallet space, how has Karry led Bitget Wallet to break through?
In this in-depth conversation, Karry shares insights from his career journey and offers deep reflections on the industry and product strategy, including for the first time a systematic explanation of the strategic thinking behind Bitget Wallet’s rebranding. The vision of “Crypto for Everyone” stems from a profound understanding of user needs and industry trends. He believes that truly future-oriented Web3 products should not be complex tools serving only a few, but integral parts of everyone’s daily life.
Key Takeaways
The core mindset of a founder is not to complain. As a founder, anyone can complain about a bad market, team, or product, but a founder cannot—because the founder is ultimately responsible for all problems.
There is no such thing as globalization—only localization. The essence of localization is using local people to do local things.
Don’t label your product with definitions like “I want minimalism” or “I want restraint.” Complexity isn’t determined by the number of features, but by whether they force disruptions on users.
A good product should return to the level of user needs—enabling users to find what they want and use the product intuitively, rather than judging quality by simplicity or complexity.
Blurring the lines between on-chain liquidity and centralized exchanges is a major trend.
The so-called “boarding pass” or “moat” are merely subjective illusions. Whenever you think about a “boarding pass” or “moat,” you’re really asking yourself: Can I just coast now? I believe this industry is still in its early stages—even the entire mobile internet sector leaves no room for complacency. If Douyin slacks off, WeChat Channels will quickly rise; if Meituan eases up, JD will enter food delivery. No one dares lower their guard. Once you relax, you fall behind—even the largest companies aren’t immune.
Below is the full interview, slightly edited and condensed:
Internet Veteran Enters Web3
TechFlow: Could you introduce yourself, Karry, and share how you entered the crypto industry?
Karry:
Hello everyone, I’m Karry, CEO of Bitget Wallet.
Since graduation, I’ve focused exclusively on the internet sector. From 2012 to 2019, I launched multiple startups during the mobile internet boom and also served as a product lead at major internet companies.
I was first exposed to cryptocurrency during my entrepreneurial years, though I didn’t dive in deeply. It wasn’t until DeFi Summer in 2021 that I began seriously following the Web3 space. In late 2021, I was invited by the founder of BitKeep (later upgraded to Bitget Wallet) to serve as a product advisor. After he stepped down in 2022, I took over as CEO and have since led Bitget Wallet’s growth.
TechFlow: Your career has always centered around the internet. In your view, what are the main differences between traditional mobile internet and the web3 industry?
Karry:
My experience at ByteDance in 2020 gave me deep insight into how large tech firms operate. By then, these giants were highly mature, equipped with robust support systems including dedicated data, growth, and business analytics teams. Every business unit operated within strict frameworks, with clear evaluation metrics and timelines. This highly standardized management brings efficiency, but also limits innovation to some extent.
At that point, the internet had become a battlefield dominated by big players—ByteDance entering e-commerce to challenge Alibaba, Tencent launching short video to rival Douyin—with less and less room for true innovation.
Post-2020, there was little new to see in the internet space—just big players fighting each other, like decorating something already defiled.
In contrast, Web3 feels entirely different. New things emerge constantly—from AA wallets to MPC, Layer2 to ZK rollups—bringing fresh concepts and technologies. While hype exists, it also injects continuous innovative energy. Any new project could suddenly rise to prominence, without obvious industry barriers. This environment full of possibilities is incredibly attractive.
Take pump.fun—it might surge out of nowhere in half a year. gmgn too. There’s no class solidification; many new opportunities remain, with reversal always possible.
That said, as a wallet provider in Web3, we share much in common with traditional internet. We still need to develop apps, focus on user growth, retention, and conversion. About 80% of traditional internet operational methods apply directly. This makes wallets and exchanges the Web3 sectors closest to traditional internet models, allowing us to leverage past experience while exploring innovation in a new domain.
TechFlow: Today, the term “founder mode” is popular in internet circles. As a professional manager, compared to companies driven directly by founders, what advantages do you bring?
Karry:
I’ve been an entrepreneur for many years. Although I didn’t start this product from scratch, I approach my work with a founder’s mindset. This comes from taking responsibility for my own life: once I commit to a path, I go all in. To me, the core of founder mentality is not complaining. I always focus on problem-solving, thinking about market, business, vision, and long-term value, maintaining a long-term perspective and avoiding short-term emotional traps. Only with a founder’s mindset can you keep pushing the business forward.
I see several key differences. First, my experience at large tech firms gave me management expertise. For example, in our small team of over 100 people, I introduced ByteDance’s management practices, emphasizing data transparency. Each business line has its own data system, and Lark bots push real-time data into group chats so every member sees performance metrics and decision context. This philosophy, known at ByteDance as “Context,” empowers frontline employees with full information to make autonomous decisions instead of waiting for top-down instructions.
Second, I maintain direct, hands-on awareness of both product details and industry dynamics. Every day, I spend 2–3 hours using our product, completing about 50 wallet transactions. This daily usage allows me to experience the product firsthand, not just rely on reports.
Therefore, I believe “founder mode” is more of a mindset. If you seek fulfillment in your work, this mindset is essential. Otherwise, if you’re just “doing a job” or “earning a paycheck,” it’s easy to fall into a cycle of complaints.
The Evolution of a Legacy Wallet
TechFlow: Bitget Wallet evolved step by step from BitKeep. Could you walk us through the full history of Bitget Wallet?
Karry:
BitKeep was founded in May 2018.
Our real breakout moment came during DeFi Summer in 2021, when we launched ranking lists and candlestick charts for Uniswap tokens, attracting massive user growth. We then introduced a transaction aggregator and maintained strong trading volume on TRON and BSC networks, peaking at over $600 million in daily volume.
To date, we support cross-chain functionality across more than twenty public chains, recently adding emerging chains like Berachain, Sonic, and Sui to continuously expand liquidity sources and improve trading experience.
In 2021–2022, Bitget invested in BitKeep in two rounds. After the original founder exited, I took over team leadership and rebranded the product to Bitget Wallet in 2023.
The rebranding aimed to integrate marketing resources, enabling Bitget (focused on centralized trading) and the former BitKeep (focused on decentralized domains) to build stronger global brands together. Despite the unified branding, teams, operations, and equity structures remain independent.
TechFlow: Looking at current achievements, what are you most proud of with Bitget Wallet?
Karry:
In our view, the key metric for being in the top tier is active users, especially new user acquisition.
Looking back at the market landscape in early 2023, first-tier leaders like MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Coinbase Wallet typically added over 500,000 new users monthly. At the time, we were in the second tier alongside TokenPocket and imToken, with monthly new users between 200,000 and 300,000. Though leading in the second tier, there was clearly a gap to the top tier.
Over the past year, we’ve reached first-tier levels in new user acquisition. In February this year, for example, we ranked third globally in new users, behind only Trust Wallet and Phantom, surpassing even mainstream wallets like MetaMask. We now have over 80 million users worldwide, approximately 10 million monthly active users (MAU), and around 1 million daily active users (DAU).
Strategic Thinking Behind the Rebrand
TechFlow: Bitget Wallet recently marked its seventh anniversary and launched a major brand upgrade. From a complete visual overhaul to introducing the core vision of “Crypto for Everyone,” what thinking lies behind this? How is this vision actually implemented in your product planning and feature design to create tangible user experiences?
Karry: Reflecting on seven years of growth, we’re proud to have evolved from a basic crypto wallet into a one-stop Web3 platform serving over 80 million global users. This rebrand carries dual significance: externally presenting a fresh visual identity, and internally clarifying our core value proposition.
Visually, we adopted a modern teal-blue tone—maintaining the professionalism expected of fintech products while enhancing user friendliness. Our new graphic language centers on arrows, symbolizing connection and progress, reflecting our commitment to decentralized openness.
We introduced the vision “Crypto for Everyone”—not just a slogan, but a conviction about the future of the industry. The true value of crypto lies not in serving a niche group of tech enthusiasts, but in becoming part of everyday life for everyone. To achieve this, we’ve comprehensively upgraded our product around four core scenarios—“trading, finance, payments, and exploration”—so every user can participate simply and securely.
In trading, we’ve built an end-to-end experience from market discovery to one-click execution. Combined with Alpha modules for signal detection and AI-powered project evaluation tools, users can seize opportunities more efficiently. Features like GetGas solve the common problem of insufficient gas for new users.
In finance, we’ve integrated mainstream DeFi protocols and launched low-barrier yield products like Hold2Earn. Our upcoming native vault will further reduce entry thresholds.
For payments, we support QR code scanning, card swiping, and merchant purchases via gateways like Padify. We’ve also launched the Bitget Wallet Visa Card, enabling crypto assets to be used in daily spending.
In exploration, we aggregate diverse DApps and combine them with passwordless account systems and robust security safeguards, helping users access the Web3 world safely and easily.
The consistent philosophy behind all these features is clear: lower barriers and enhance usability so crypto technology better meets real user needs. We believe only when everyone can naturally use Web3 products can the vision of “Crypto for Everyone” truly come to life.
TechFlow: How do you view the current competitive landscape of crypto wallets?
Karry:
The boundary between on-chain and centralized exchange liquidity is blurring—that’s an industry-wide trend. Take Binance Alpha 2.0 as an example: exchanges are now leveraging AMM-provided liquidity, which will shape the industry’s direction.
Regarding wallet competition, the entire industry remains extremely early-stage and immature, with penetration below 5%.
We see this as a marathon, not a sprint. Internally, we often say: “Invincibility lies in oneself; victory lies in the opponent.” We can only ensure we don’t make mistakes—whether we win depends on whether our competitors falter. If opponents don’t fail, the competition will last a very long time.
Looking back, our 2021 decision to build a standalone app focused on on-chain trading proved highly correct.
We’re not just focusing on trading—we’ve also expanded into PayFi. Now, on-chain trading is moving toward efficiency competition, while payments are poised to become the next growth frontier. Going forward, we’ll focus more on building consumer use cases, transforming the wallet into a genuine crypto payment platform.
TechFlow: In this marathon, what is your core competitive advantage?
Karry:
Our core business philosophy is: pursue growth while ensuring profitability.
This self-sustaining capability allows us to play the long game, without relying on subsidies or investor funding. We’re already profitable month-over-month, ensuring stable reinvestment and avoiding the risk of projects being abruptly canceled due to executive decisions—like a certain exchange shutting down a ZK DEX project after two years and 60-person investment because the CEO changed his mind.
In product strategy, we’re not confined to our initial on-chain trading focus. We see payments as a key future scenario, hence our PayFi strategy. Additionally, we maintain an innovation team to stay sensitive to market trends, continuously iterating and experimenting based on user feedback.
There Is No Globalization, Only Localization
TechFlow: How does Bitget Wallet approach global expansion? Do you have differentiated strategies for different markets?
Karry:
Here’s a belief we hold strongly: there is no such thing as globalization—only localization. Localization means employing local people to handle local matters, including community building, PR activities, and market strategies.
Our product has many features—Swap, wealth management, Staking, DeFi interactions, airdrops, Alpha strategies, even credit card services. You can’t push all these to users at once, or they’ll feel overwhelmed. So our promotion focus varies by region. For instance, Japanese users show greater interest in financial products, while in countries with volatile local currencies, crypto is often seen as a store of value.
Therefore, we deploy local teams in each region to establish operational models, build communities, and run promotional campaigns. These on-the-ground teams better understand local needs and provide effective strategic input.
TechFlow: Chinese internet products often face “cultural mismatch” when expanding overseas. Domestically, users seem to prefer “all-in-one” super-apps like WeChat. Overseas users tend to favor simpler, more specialized tools. What’s your take on this? Do international users experience any friction with Bitget Wallet?
Karry:
I have a clear stance: don’t define your product with labels like “I want minimalism” or “I want restraint.”
A good product should center on user needs, enabling users to intuitively find and use desired functions.
Take WeChat: features like red packets appear naturally within specific contexts, not forced onto users. Its user experience is excellent globally, rivaling apps like WhatsApp. Its limited global reach stems more from market strategy and geopolitical factors, not product design flaws.
This reminds me of debates during early smartphone development. Luo Yonghao strongly advocated “skeuomorphism,” and indeed iPhone initially used skeuomorphic design, but the broader trend later shifted to “flat design.”
Ruo Yonghao argued intensely over these design philosophies, but I think that shows a lack of understanding of product essence. The key isn’t these stylistic labels, but whether information flows naturally for users, enabling instinctive interaction. That’s the true heart of product design.
Thus, when building global products, our goal is enabling intuitive use across regions—not blindly chasing design ideologies like “minimalism.” True simplicity means smooth, natural user experience, not artificial adherence to formal minimalism.
TechFlow: Earlier you mentioned wallets and exchanges are among the most web2-like applications in web3. Drawing from your experience in mobile internet’s evolution, where would you place today’s crypto wallet development stage relative to early mobile internet competition? What similarities and differences exist?
Karry:
Crypto wallet penetration is still very low—comparable to the internet era of 1998 or 2000. But we shouldn’t assume explosive growth is imminent.
I’m bullish because crypto has already demonstrated real value in finance—cross-border payments, DeFi liquidity provision. Right now, we’re particularly focused on PayFi.
Today’s U cards only bootstrap via Visa and MasterCard’s long-established merchant networks. More valuable will be direct crypto-to-crypto payments and settlements, letting users pay salaries, manage finances, or convert to fiat directly with crypto. Once such end-to-end crypto payment systems exist, huge opportunities will emerge in remittances and cross-border payments.
Wallets Are Not Gateways; Moats Are Illusions
TechFlow: Back in the mobile internet era, we often heard about “traffic gateway battles.” People believed Tencent secured the mobile internet “ticket” thanks to WeChat. In web3, many view wallets similarly—as traffic gateways. What’s your take on this analogy? Following this logic, which wallets have already secured the ticket?
Karry:
I disagree with this view.
Many believe wallets are gateways, but I don’t. WeChat became a gateway due to its massive user coverage and powerful social network effects. Wallets have neither—Web3 account systems are inherently interoperable, making user migration extremely easy.
The ideas of a “ticket” or “moat” are purely subjective imaginations.
Around 2020, while working at ByteDance, we held company-wide meetings every two months. Someone once asked Zhang Yiming: “Tencent has social as its moat, Alibaba has e-commerce—what’s ByteDance’s moat?”
I remember Zhang’s answer clearly. On the video call, he said: “The concept of a moat is outdated. In the mobile internet era, or in such a fiercely competitive environment, there are no real moats.”
Despite Alibaba’s massive moat, Pinduoduo found a way around. Despite Tencent’s strong moat, before video channels rose in 2020, its user time spent kept declining, eaten away by Douyin.
What is a moat? He said our moat is having rivals like Kuaishou—that keeps us alert and forces us to keep running hard.
As soon as you start thinking about “tickets” or “moats,” you’re essentially asking, “Can I just rest now?” But in this industry—whether crypto or mobile internet—there’s no room to rest. Once you let up, competitors will quickly overtake you.
TechFlow: Will the crypto wallet space eventually see a winner-takes-all outcome, with only a few surviving players?
Karry:
By business logic, mature markets naturally consolidate toward leaders, eventually forming a landscape dominated by two or three players: the leader capturing 50–60%, the next two sharing about 30%. We’re already seeing this in today’s exchange market.
But in crypto wallets, such consolidation isn’t visible yet—proof that the industry is still very early. Moreover, whether this sector will ever fully mature or remain peripheral is still uncertain.
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