Beyond CEX and DEX, Bitget ushers in a new competitive landscape with UEX
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Beyond CEX and DEX, Bitget ushers in a new competitive landscape with UEX
Seven years was just the prologue; UEX is the true beginning. The story of Bitget is far from over.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy: TechFlow
In the crypto industry, many stories don't begin with glory.
Tight cash flow, unanswered partnership requests, and redemption pressures during extreme market conditions. Facing established players, newcomers often have to endure far greater effort and hardship.
Every decision made today magnifies into outcomes tomorrow. Some are forced to exit, while others treat failure as a calibration tool, constantly adjusting their course.
But fate always favors those who refuse to accept mediocrity.
The PUMP token launch event brought different platforms' responses into sharp focus—multiple exchanges encountered varying degrees of issues, yet this rising star securedthe largest allocation among all peers and received the most positive feedback for its handling.
The protagonist of this story is Bitget.
This year marks Bitget’s first seven years. In reality, Bitget’s current success was far from easy—it once even faced a situation where its startup capital was nearly depleted.
How did this exchange transform from an industry underdog to a leading player within seven years? What determination does its recently announced UEX (Universal Exchange) vision represent? We will thoroughly examine Bitget’s core transformations and initiatives, uncovering the development trajectory behind them.
2018 to 2025: Transformation in the First Seven Years
I. Radical Restructuring, USDT Opportunity, Social Trading—Finally Achieving Growth
In 2018, the crypto market was going through a winter. For the fledgling Bitget, this was undoubtedly the harshest entrepreneurial test—a lean team of dozens had to maintain spot trading operations while expanding into the futures market, yet struggled on both fronts.
Facing near-total depletion of funds, Bitget made a “radical” decision: suspend spot trading and concentrate all resources on the derivatives赛道. This seemingly risky move laid a crucial foundation for its future rise.
A turning point came in July 2019. Through in-depth market research, the team敏锐ly identified strong user demand for USDT-settled linear futures contracts. Bitget responded swiftly by launching an innovative linear futures product. The timing was perfect—the product achieved over $100 million in trading volume on its first day, injecting strong momentum into the platform.
Innovation didn’t stop there. By the end of 2019, they targeted a new blue ocean—social trading. In May 2020, the copy trading feature officially launched, aiming to bridge professional traders and beginners. However, despite attracting hundreds of traders, the initial version's complex user experience became a growth bottleneck.
To tackle this challenge, at the end of 2020, the management team conducted a secluded product overhaul at a remote restaurant. Guided by the principle of “simplicity is supreme,” they drastically streamlined redundant features, simplifying complex processes. This redesign broke through the user experience bottleneck, triggering another wave of growth and solidifying Bitget’s leading position in derivatives.
Three years later, in 2021, Bitget relaunched its spot trading business. Leveraging its mature foundation, Bitget successfully reversed its fortunes in the spot market, evolving from a single derivatives platform into a top-tier comprehensive exchange with both spot and derivatives operations.
II. Acquisitions, Investments, and the Next Growth Frontier: Web3 Ecosystem
While most exchanges were still competing in traditional business areas, Bitget had already begun planning a grander strategy—evolving from a single trading platform into a Web3 ecosystem builder.
The key step in this transformation was the strategic acquisition of the BitKeep wallet.
In March 2023, Bitget announced the acquisition of controlling interest in BitKeep for $30 million. Five months later, BitKeep was officially rebranded as Bitget Wallet, introducing the new vision of "faster trading, better assets," while maintaining independence between the wallet and the exchange from the outset.
This acquisition was not merely a brand integration but a strategic move in building Bitget’s Web3 panoramic ecosystem. In May 2025, Bitget Wallet underwent another brand upgrade, launching the slogan "Crypto for Everyone" and earning strong reputation among users.
In terms of product matrix, Bitget Wallet has built a complete ecosystem centered around four key scenarios: "Trading, Wealth Management, Payments, and Exploration":
-
Cross-chain trading support across more than 20 public chains
-
Innovative GetGas feature, solving new users’ gas fee challenges
-
Issuance of the Bitget Wallet Visa card, bridging crypto and traditional financial payment channels
"Crypto for Everyone" is more than just a slogan; its actions extend beyond the wallet. Bitget Onchain and GetAgent are two major products recently launched by Bitget to enhance user trading experiences.
Bitget Onchain connects CEX and DEX, allowing users to directly trade on-chain assets using their Bitget spot account without manual cross-chain transfers or wallet switching, significantly lowering the barrier for on-chain trading. In September this year, the Onchain platform expanded support to include all on-chain assets on ETH, BSC, Base, and SOL, broadening the scope of tradable traditional financial assets and becoming the world’s first UEX (Universal Exchange) to support full asset coverage.
GetAgent is Bitget’s first all-in-one cryptocurrency trading assistant. AI is the buzzword of the year, and every industry is exploring how to integrate it. For trading, Bitget’s answer is: make trading as easy as chatting.
Using artificial intelligence, GetAgent simplifies the crypto trading process, integrating over 50 professional trading tools to provide services including market analysis, strategy formulation, smart money tracking, risk assessment, and trade execution. For example, users can easily check today’s market trends, specific token details, trending on-chain tokens, etc.
Recently, as RWA gains traction, Bitget partnered early with Ondo Finance to list over 100 stock tokens and stock futures.
Crypto for Everyone—Bitget is delivering answers to users through wallets, on-chain solutions, AI, and more.
The recently introduced UEX (Universal Exchange), aims to break the impossible trinity of user experience, asset richness, and security by integrating the strengths of CEX and DEX to create a unified platform for users.
According to Bitget CEO Gracy: UEX will integrate a unified ecosystem of multi-category assets, including all mainstream and innovative tokens, seamless integration of traditional and crypto assets, true 24/7 operation, ultra-fast experience, and institutional-grade risk control.
While many remain unaware, when Nasdaq officially filed to launch "24/5" trading services in March this year, Gracy firmly believes the real future isn’t limited to "24/5," but rather "24/7"—an uninterrupted, borderless, frictionless financial world.
UEX currently supports products such as US stock tokens and stock futures. Future plans include gradually incorporating stocks, ETFs, gold, forex, and other global quality assets, enabling users to seamlessly participate in global market trading. For more details, see: CEO's 7th Anniversary Open Letter
III. Entering the Institutional Market: Upgrading from "Rapid Growth" to "Professionalization"
While maintaining its retail business advantages, in 2025, Bitget began a comprehensive push into institutional services, shifting its business focus toward ToB.
Better fees and experience. Within its institutional service system, Bitget first launched the upgraded VIP "PRO" program. Institutional users enjoy not only preferential trading fees but also higher API call frequencies and an optimized trading environment, achieving truly professional-grade trading experiences.
Fund security remains the top priority for institutional clients. To address this, Bitget innovatively introduced a dedicated fund custody service. Through a "1:1委托 mapping" mechanism, client funds are locked in custodial wallets, ensuring asset security while maintaining trading flexibility. This dual-protection mechanism has greatly enhanced institutional trust.
Liquidity incentive programs. In liquidity management, Bitget launched more competitive incentive programs for market makers. By optimizing fee structures and establishing dynamic reward mechanisms, the platform attracted numerous high-quality liquidity providers. Officially announced partners include:
Vataga Crypto, optimizing execution speed and liquidity for high-frequency and professional trading, offering seamless access incentives to Bitget for day traders.
DWF Labs, collaborating with Bitget to enhance USD1 spot and derivatives liquidity.
Pulsar, providing liquidity support for spot and derivatives markets, strengthening Bitget’s overall liquidity depth.
For exchanges, balancing consumer and institutional demands demonstrates strong resilience during market volatility. Although B2B needs are harder to meet and more specialized, this step marks a critical transition for Bitget—from a platform serving general users to a comprehensive crypto service provider meeting diverse professional demands.
Exchange "infrastructure" development, talent and compliance "arms race"
IV. Building Foundations, Attracting Talent—Bitget Empowers Its Future
The core of corporate competition is talent competition—especially evident in AI and cryptocurrency fields. What makes Bitget attractive to talent?
Is the annual bonus really the core competitiveness?
Of course not. Annual bonuses are a form of performance-based recognition, rewarding talent that creates real value for the company. Multiple insiders reveal that internally, Bitget adheres to pragmatism, implementing flat management and full delegation.
Outstanding employees receive corresponding authority and incentives. The company promotes an efficient, direct communication culture, encouraging team members to face issues head-on and provide timely feedback, avoiding inefficiencies from hierarchical reporting. This management style enables the company to maintain agility and competitiveness in rapidly changing markets.
In its talent development strategy, Bitget launched a Global Graduate Program targeting exceptional fresh graduates with global vision and innovation spirit. This program offers diversified career opportunities in operations, product, marketing, risk control, and more—not only opening doors to the Web3 industry for young talent but also continuously injecting innovation into the company.
Today, Bitget has grown into an international enterprise with over 2,000 employees. Through this comprehensive talent system, Bitget is building an innovative, adaptable global team, laying a solid foundation for long-term growth.
V. Driving Value, Innovating Mechanisms—BGB Evolves Beyond a Simple Platform Token
In this market cycle, which has been particularly harsh for assets beyond Bitcoin, Bitget’s platform token BGB has shown remarkable resilience. To date, BGB has surged 372% over the past year, outperforming Bitcoin and ranking among the few high-performing assets. Behind this achievement lies Bitget’s carefully designed deflationary mechanism and comprehensive ecosystem strategy.
In December 2024, Bitget released the new BGB whitepaper, unveiling a massive buyback and burn program.
The platform committed to burning BGB tokens worth over $5 billion, approximately 40% of total supply. In the first burn, Bitget permanently destroyed 800 million BGB tokens held by the core team, reducing circulating supply to 1.2 billion and achieving 100% full circulation, completely eliminating any reserved or future release tokens.
In 2025, Bitget innovatively introduced a "dual-track burn" mechanism.
On one hand, based on actual on-chain activity within the Bitget Wallet ecosystem, user-generated Gas fees are used as the burn base;
On the other hand, a fixed percentage burn quota is set, creating a self-driven supply-demand regulation mechanism. This mechanism delivered significant results in Q1 2025, completing the burn of 30,006,905 BGB tokens—about 2.5% of total supply—far exceeding industry averages.
In early September, BGB was upgraded again to become the native token of the Morph public chain, with another 220 million $BGB tokens burned—worth $1.09 billion!
Now, BGB has evolved into a core token unifying exchange, wallet, and public chain.
At the centralized exchange level, BGB serves not only as a medium for paying trading fees but also as a key credential for platform governance and accessing various privileges. Users holding BGB enjoy trading fee discounts and can participate in innovative projects like Launchpad, Launchpool, and PoolX.
Within the wallet, BGB integrates via Bitget Wallet, allowing on-chain BGB holders to qualify for premium project airdrops, transaction fee waivers, and more.
On the public chain, users can stake BGB on the Morph chain to contribute to ecosystem development, provide liquidity in decentralized trading, or use it as collateral in DeFi lending protocols. Becoming the Morph chain token further expanded its utility and consumption scenarios.
VI. Brand Building, Reputation Investment—Spending on Sponsorships and Public Welfare
When people think of Bitget, they often recall its iconic blue double-arrow logo and global football superstar Lionel Messi as brand ambassador—testaments to Bitget’s sustained brand-building efforts.
In its visual identity system, Bitget adopted a "less is more" strategy in July 2023, streamlining its brand logo. The new logo features a minimalist double arrow, symbolizing Bitget’s mission to connect traditional finance and digital assets.
In brand endorsements, Bitget signed legendary footballer Messi in 2022. This strategic move paid off significantly after Messi led Argentina to World Cup victory, greatly boosting the brand’s global visibility.
Following this, Bitget continued expanding its global influence with a diversified sports marketing strategy, becoming the official cryptocurrency partner of LaLiga (Spain’s top football league) in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. It also became an official partner of MotoGP, the world’s premier motorcycle racing championship.
In public welfare, Bitget entered a three-year charitable partnership with UNICEF, leveraging blockchain technology to empower adolescent girls and educators in developing countries through innovative education models.
To deepen global expansion, Bitget is actively establishing regional operation centers in Asia and Latin America, with plans to enter European and African markets. The “Bitget Wallet Champion” global community influencer program aims to cultivate “crypto evangelists” and promote Web3 adoption. Notably, Bitget joined the UNICEF Game Changers Coalition, supporting blockchain skills training programs in eight countries, demonstrating its commitment to inclusive financial development.
VII. Compliance and Security—Aggressively Securing Licenses
In the digital asset industry, security remains the paramount concern.
Since launching its Proof-of-Reserves mechanism in December 2022, Bitget has consistently updated monthly, ensuring user asset reserve ratios remain no lower than 1:1. As of September 2025, the platform’s total reserve ratio has risen to 186%, showcasing strong asset backing.
The latest audit report shows Bitget maintains robust reserves across major assets. The platform holds 30,753.11 BTC, while user assets amount to only 9,395.3 BTC, resulting in a reserve ratio of 327%. For stablecoins, USDT reserves reach 1.945 billion, covering user holdings of 1.93 billion—coverage rate of 101%. USDC reserves stand healthy at 143 million held versus 114 million user assets, achieving a 125% reserve ratio. Ethereum reserves are even stronger: 308,082.22 ETH held against 139,140.23 ETH in user accounts, resulting in a 221% reserve ratio.
To further strengthen user asset security, Bitget established a $300 million Protection Fund, now grown to $700 million, forming a dual-layer asset protection system. This fund provides additional safeguards, effectively mitigating extreme market volatility or unexpected risks.
Bitget continues advancing in compliance.
In April 2025, Chief Legal Officer Hon Ng reaffirmed the platform’s global compliance commitment through an open letter. Against the backdrop of increasing global regulation, Bitget has obtained over eight regulatory licenses in Australia, the UK, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and El Salvador, and continues pursuing compliance in additional jurisdictions.
From an obscure derivatives exchange to a globally leading digital asset platform, Bitget has achieved breakthrough after breakthrough over seven years.
In Bitget’s recently released Transparency Report for August 2025, the platform disclosed latest developments and key progress in core business areas. According to data from The Block and Coinglass, Bitget ranks among the top three global CEXs in open interest for both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Specifically, BTC open interest surpassed $10 billion, while ETH remained in the $5–7 billion range, reaching $6 billion by the end of August.
Additionally, CoinDesk’s “Market Data Deep Dive Report” highlights that Bitget leads the market in ETH and SOL liquidity. From November 2023 to June 2025, Bitget’s derivatives cumulative trading volume reached $11.5 trillion. In 2025, the platform’s average monthly trading volume hit $750 billion, with nearly 90% coming from derivatives.
As of July 2, 2025, Coingecko data shows Bitget ranks third globally in futures trading volume and second in spot trading volume.
After seven years of journey, Bitget has crossed from industry margins to the global stage. But the real story has only just begun.
UEX (Universal Exchange) is Bitget’s declaration of the future. It’s not a simple feature merger but a disruption: breaking down the boundaries between centralized and decentralized systems, allowing users to seamlessly switch trading environments and freely control their assets on a single platform.
If the past seven years were Bitget’s era of “wild growth,” then UEX marks the beginning of its “new civilization.” It carries the ambition to reshape the exchange landscape and ignite the next phase of evolution in the crypto industry.
Seven years is merely the prologue. UEX is the true beginning. Bitget’s story is far from over.
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
深潮TechFlow
