Bitget Product Lead: What does the newly proposed "UEX Panoramic Exchange" mean?
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Bitget Product Lead: What does the newly proposed "UEX Panoramic Exchange" mean?
User demand for trading diversified assets is increasing, and solutions for various asset types are becoming increasingly mature, requiring CEX trading scopes to突破 beyond previous limits.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsThis issue features an interview with KH, Head of Product at Bitget, discussing the concept of a Universal Exchange (UEX) introduced by Bitget's CEO. The discussion covers exchange product upgrades, asset diversification, AI and risk control systems, RWA (real-world assets) and integration with traditional finance, regulatory and compliance issues, as well as competitive positioning against other exchanges. The views expressed in this article are those of the interviewee and do not represent the opinions of Wu Shuo. Readers should strictly comply with the laws and regulations applicable in their jurisdictions.
The Opportunity for CEX-DEX Convergence
Maodi: Before we dive into these questions, could you first introduce yourself—your current role and your experience at Bitget?
KH: I'm responsible for our product and part of the business operations here, currently serving as Chief Product Officer (CPO). Most of my time is focused on product development, and over the past year or so, I've also had the opportunity to engage more broadly across various business areas and larger-scale products.
Maodi: Recently, many exchanges have been exploring the convergence of CEX and DEX, launching related products. Why did you choose this particular moment to roll out such a product or upgrade? In your view, what is the most pressing issue the market needs to solve right now?
KH: First, we’ve observed a core challenge facing CEXs in this cycle: users want access to a broader range of crypto or high-quality assets, including million-level long-tail assets like memecoins on-chain, as well as tokenized traditional assets (RWA). There’s a mismatch between this demand and the traditional CEX “listing model” that has historically supported spot and derivatives markets. In short, user appetite for diversified assets is growing, while solutions for various asset types are maturing. This means CEXs need to expand their scope beyond historical limits. That’s why many CEXs are moving toward DEX integration—it's driven by these combined factors.
We believe this requires a systematic solution, not fragmented features. First, asset supply must be widely supported. As the number of assets grows, users then face new challenges: discovering good trading opportunities, enjoying a seamless trading experience, accessing suitable trading tools, and ensuring adequate security and risk management. That’s why, at this juncture and based on major industry trends, we’ve introduced the new UEX concept.
Defining UEX and Enhancing User Experience
Maodi: For ordinary users, especially non-professional traders, how should they understand UEX? Beyond just a name change, what specific improvements can they expect in actual experience—such as speed, tradable asset types, etc.? Could you elaborate?
KH: UEX stands for UniversalExchange, but unlike CEX and DEX where C and D denote degrees of centralization, U can carry multiple meanings—Universal Assets, representing broader, more diverse global assets; Unified Account, allowing users to meet all trading needs through a single account without switching; and User-friendly, leveraging AI to deliver a more intuitive trading experience. Ultimately, which interpretation of “U” gains traction among users and the community will be determined over time.
UEX was initially an internal concept born from observing major industry trends. We wanted a framework to break free from the inertia of traditional CEX thinking—not just patching up existing products, but rethinking them from the ground up to suit new demands. We coined the phrase “tear down the wall, rebuild a market without walls,” aiming for our new positioning to clearly convey the transformation we’re delivering to both users and the industry.
As for tangible user improvements addressing earlier pain points: First, expanded and diversified crypto assets. Our onchain trading product underwent a major upgrade in mid-September, supporting full-range assets across multiple major blockchains. Users can now seamlessly purchase millions of onchain tokens using USDT/USDC from their Bitget spot accounts, powered by our custody and onchain trading protocol.
In traditional financial assets: On the derivatives side, we’ve launched perpetual contracts for stock RWA indices such as Apple and NVIDIA. We now offer tokenized stocks covering the "Magnificent Seven" large tech companies and other popular crypto-related firms, with contracts supporting up to 25x leverage and steadily improving liquidity.
On tokenized U.S. stocks: We are the first CEX to partner with Ondo, a U.S. stock token issuer, integrating its liquidity from 1inch. Over 100 U.S. stock tokens are now available, purchasable directly in Bitget’s onchain trading market. Ondo’s current liquidity largely meets user demand.
Another direction is TradFi: We’re actively advancing integration with MetaQuotes. In Q4, we’ll launch access via MT5 to trade over 100 TradFi instruments including gold, forex, and stock indices. The underlying CFD contracts are already highly liquid in traditional markets.
Overall, this marks a significant leap—from our previous focus on crypto assets to encompassing full onchain assets, RWA stock tokens and their derivatives, and now TradFi offerings like gold, forex, and indices—greatly expanding asset diversity.
The second user challenge: With vastly expanded assets, can users better identify trading opportunities? On one hand, we’re upgrading market data and fundamental analysis tools. On the other, we’re driving a paradigm shift through AI—which we see as a long-term trend. AI can fundamentally bridge the trading gap, helping users improve their trading behaviors and habits. This is why we’re building smarter trading tools.
The third challenge: With greatly enriched assets and trading capabilities, can we provide stronger risk controls and user protection? This is where our centralized strengths come into play—building secure, reliable risk management systems across all segments. Our $700 million user protection fund, along with global service and market teams, ensures users can trust and confidently use our products.
UEX Onchain Risk Control and Fee Structure
Maodi: You mentioned “security and peace of mind.” Personally, I use both exchange and onchain products, and many onchain tokens carry high risks—including “Pump-and-Dump” schemes or fake meme projects. I noticed Bitget’s announcement stating UEX will apply risk screening and multi-dimensional metrics. My understanding is that only vetted tokens can be traded on your platform. How exactly does this screening work? Is it public? Also, when users buy onchain assets via your platform versus directly onchain, what’s the difference in fees?
KH: Great question. Given the vast number of onchain assets, risks are more pronounced. Traditional CEXs operate under a permissioned model, where listing teams conduct reviews—a “whitelist” approach. For our onchain trading, we’ve moved toward full asset openness, but not without constraints. Instead, we adopt a “permissionless + blacklist risk control” model—shifting from whitelist to blacklist logic. Assets flagged for issues like illegal content, violence, pump-and-dump schemes, manipulation, malicious minting, or rug pulls are blacklisted. To achieve this, we’ve taken several steps: First, we integrate data from multiple professional onchain analytics providers, applying multi-dimensional labels, and have developed our own proprietary multi-factor risk model algorithm. Even with full access, if an asset is deemed high-risk, trading will be blocked—even if users search by contract address. Second, users see a risk rating score. We’re continuously refining this scoring system and gradually disclosing the risk factors detected, indicating higher-risk dimensions. We aim to deliver reliable mechanisms and trader protection through product and algorithmic design—this is challenging but the right path forward.
Regarding fees: The onchain trading product itself doesn’t differ much in cost—we currently charge 0.5%. But our key value lies in a seamless trading experience. Onchain, users typically face varying Gas fees per chain, need native tokens for Gas, and must manage cross-chain complexities. Our onchain trading protocol simplifies all of this. Users only need USDT/USDC in their CEX spot account to trade onchain assets across multiple chains—fast, smooth, and frictionless. This is a major product improvement.
Balancing Experience, Asset Range, and Security
Maodi: Both CEX and DEX have long faced the “impossible trinity” of user experience, asset breadth, and security. How do you view this trilemma in relation to UEX? Can the boundaries be expanded to combine the strengths of CEX and DEX?
KH: I believe this “trilemma” is only relevant to a certain historical phase. With evolving infrastructure and product designs, better solutions are possible. Our goal with UEX is richer assets, superior experience, and robust security—made feasible by current developments: DEX integration and RWA issuance capabilities are maturing, significantly enhancing both asset diversity and user experience.
Security remains our top priority and foundational principle—the lifeblood of any exchange. Thanks to our long-standing CEX expertise, resources, and team, we’re better equipped—and feel a greater responsibility—to deliver strong risk management and safety, ultimately providing users with excellent product experiences.
Maodi: It sounds like you're building a “super gateway”—covering both onchain and traditional financial assets like stocks. Is this a new strategic direction? How do you plan to differentiate from other exchanges?
KH: “Super gateway” reflects our product evolution: one-stop, broader assets, better experience, safe, simple, and easy to use—that’s the core value we aim to deliver.
On differentiation: In its early days, Bitget spent considerable time catching up product-wise. Today, leading exchanges have minimal differences in core products, resulting in noticeable homogenization. This year, we’ve seen exchanges experimenting in areas like assets, DEX, and payments. We believe the timing is ripe to capture the “super gateway” opportunity. While users may remember us for strong futures and copy trading today, we want them to remember Bitget tomorrow as a UEX—a super one-stop gateway offering the widest range of trading options and powerful tools.
Maodi: You mentioned your $700 million fund, and announcements note a unified risk control and protection mechanism. In extreme scenarios, how are user assets protected? What does the compensation mechanism look like? Can you share more details?
KH: The protection fund is a user safeguard mechanism we’ve maintained and evolved over recent years. As our platform scales, the fund has grown, now reaching $700 million. We aim to offer broader protection. For example, in DEX environments, personal wallets or participation in high-risk protocols often lack CEX-grade safeguards. Within our UEX ecosystem, for any service, protocol, or product we provide—whether onchain or TradFi—if users suffer losses due to system downtime or security failures, we will handle complaints and support affected users. This has always been a CEX responsibility and a reflection of our “user-first” principle.
Industry Outlook for UEX and User Base Differences with PERPDEX
Maodi: Do you think UEX will become the mainstream direction for future exchanges? Recently, similar products like PERPDEX have emerged, and even Binance is pursuing a similar path. How do you view this space?
KH: PERPDEX is indeed a hot topic and sector right now. As industry participants, we deeply respect and welcome outstanding teams and products like Hyperliquid. Pushing technological and product boundaries fosters healthy competition and drives industry growth. Derivatives have always been a key product line for exchanges and users, and DEXs have shown stronger growth than CEXs here, contributing to the hype.
Regarding differences with UEX: Currently, PERPDEX and UEX serve quite different user bases. Compared to PERPDEX, our product is better suited for mainstream users today. We’ve invested heavily in creating a smoother, more accessible experience—making our platform easier to use for a broader audience. This is a key distinction in user demographics. In the short term, this gap exists, but personally, I believe decentralization is the industry’s future. The original vision of using blockchain to reform financial systems is becoming clearer step by step—and that’s exciting.
Maodi: Will Bitget launch a product similar to Hyperliquid soon?
KH: This is a domain we’re closely watching, and we will certainly make significant moves in this space.
AI’s Strategic Role in Bitget
Maodi: Your announcements also highlight various AI features, such as information Q&A and smart money tracking. Where do these AI products fit within your overall strategy? Are they auxiliary tools or a core pillar of future development? Do you have a dedicated AI team? Could you tell us more?
KH: From last year through the first half of this year, we built a strong AI product and engineering team—laying the foundation for upcoming launches. Team members come from backgrounds like Microsoft and Alibaba DAMO Academy. AI capabilities are being deeply integrated across the platform. Some integrations are less visible, such as AI-assisted coding, translation/localization, and AI-powered content review and recommendations—tasks previously manual are now automated. Our self-developed AI customer service bot is another example. The most user-facing feature is our AI assistant, GetAgent, launched in August—positioned as a crypto-native AI trading assistant. It integrates numerous foundational models and algorithms, enriched with internal and external data, services, and crypto news. Users will find it capable of deep market analysis and news retrieval. More importantly, unlike general-purpose AI tools, GetAgent knows your portfolio and trading style, enabling personalized strategies and even natural-language order execution. This is the exchange’s advantage in building AI agents.
Among UEX’s two core strategies—extreme asset diversification and intelligent trading tools—AI plays a pivotal role. This mirrors the media shift from print to internet: when content supply exploded, consumption patterns changed, and recommendation systems became central. Similarly, as asset supply expands, trading tools must evolve in tandem—hence AI’s role as our second strategic pillar.
We believe in this trend, though it will take time to mature. Today, users rely on GUIs for trading—will GUIs remain essential? Might more users interact with agents/chatbots instead? This is the change we aim to drive.
Exchanges hold a unique advantage: trading happens within our ecosystem, enabling deep integration. We can help users analyze, manage portfolios, and execute trades effectively. GetAgent currently leads in architecture, integrating over 50 MCP tools internally and externally. Across platforms and startups launching Crypto+AI products, our internal and external evaluations show Bitget’s GetAgent is among the most deeply integrated AI agents in trading scenarios today. We welcome users to try it and share feedback.
UEX, Compliance, and Tokenization of Traditional Assets
Maodi: You mentioned tokenized stocks, RWA, gold, forex—traditional assets. If all these are brought into UEX, won’t compliance and regulation become challenging? How do you plan to address this?
KH: Compliance is always thoroughly assessed in our product design. We conduct strict due diligence on RWA issuers—checking for broker-dealer licenses, legal compliance, restricted jurisdictions, user privacy standards, and equity/dividend frameworks—all key concerns. We maintain close communication with active issuers in the market. Our integration with Ondo, for instance, involved rigorous mutual due diligence. For gold and forex, established integration models exist. MetaQuotes is a globally recognized online forex/CFD provider. We will obtain necessary licenses and permissions, comply with AML/CFT standards, and ensure full regulatory alignment.
Maodi: Tokenized stocks face ongoing debates around liquidity and equity rights—this space is still early. Have you integrated Ondo’s products? Have you studied their equity rights mechanisms? Any new ideas?
KH: As an early-stage product, RWA token liquidity is indeed a phased challenge. Therefore, we haven’t listed any RWA pairs on our spot order book. Instead, we’ve tapped into Ondo’s liquidity pools on 1inch, where designated market makers provide liquidity. This “external liquidity” model actually offers more concentrated and ideal depth than direct listing—so we chose this approach.
On dividends: Each issuer has its own model. Ondo, for example, incorporates dividend value into the token’s “equity price” as a discount. Long-term, if the underlying stock pays consistent dividends, Ondo’s token price may exceed the traditional market price—not a 1:1 peg, but reflecting reinvested dividend premiums in the RWA asset price. Users essentially hold a “continuously compounding dividend” position. I believe as the industry matures, more widely accepted solutions will emerge.
We’ve also innovated in RWA derivatives: launching perpetual contracts based on RWA stock indices. Since the same underlying asset (e.g., Tesla) may have multiple issuers with differing liquidity at launch, we bundle them into index contracts. Each issuer contributes to the index price, weighted by trading volume and liquidity—maximizing effective liquidity and creating a more stable, efficient pricing market.
Maodi: During regular stock trading hours—say, Tesla’s NASDAQ session—do you incorporate the live stock price into the index? And outside trading hours, do you use the weighted price of tokenized stock products as the derivative price? Is that correct?
KH: We don’t directly use the underlying traditional market price, as we support tokenized derivatives. Traditional prices may serve as reference points for pricing constraints or risk control, but the derivative (PERP) is fundamentally priced on RWA tokens. Ondo’s RWA tokens trade 24/7, except on non-trading days; on trading days, they’re available 24 hours.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
吴说区块链
