Why are professionals from traditional brokerages flowing into crypto exchanges?

Author: Whiter Runner

For a long time, traditional brokerages were considered the safer choice in the eyes of many financial professionals.

Licenses were mature, processes were clear, and career paths were relatively certain. Working in such a system for a long time, one gets used to that sense of security with clearly defined boundaries: what can and cannot be done, with rules to follow for every step.

But in the past few years, the environment for policies, compliance, and cross-border business has continuously evolved, and the business boundaries of traditional brokerages have been adjusted accordingly. Client offboarding, regional restrictions, and tightened customer acquisition — terms that once only appeared in the news gradually became the daily reality for frontline employees. Fewer users, narrower paths, and changed growth models.

It was precisely at this moment that some traditional finance professionals began to look outward again.

Ethan, Lily, Myooi... they once held various positions in traditional brokerages: growth, operations, creative, product, and advertising. Some were just beginning to understand what a "chain" is, others had only followed Crypto in the news, and some had already seen the convergence of traditional finance and the crypto industry.

They each had their own concerns: compliance, stability, volatility, career development, personal fit — every issue is worth deep consideration.

But when familiar paths begin to narrow, new markets are also opening up. For them, Bitget isn't just a new job opportunity; it feels more like a chance to re-understand the financial industry and re-validate themselves.

Ethan: Five Years on the Overseas Finance Frontline, First to Feel the Market Shift

Ethan worked at Futu for nearly five years, responsible for building regional business teams, local market development, KOL operations, and corporate partnerships.

These tasks kept him on the market's front lines for a long time. He could feel daily where users came from, whether channels were still effective, and if partners were willing to proceed. Later, the business boundaries of traditional brokerages began to change; cross-border business, client scope, and customer acquisition methods all became more cautious. For someone in growth, this change was palpable: actions that could previously be tried quickly now required confirmation of feasibility, applicable regions, and the extent of implementation.

Ethan has always been sensitive to external market changes. He says his career has spanned industries, "from internet brokerages to traditional banks to Web3," but always within the overseas financial sector. Based in Hong Kong, he saw an increasing number of Web3 exhibitions, exchanges like OSL and HashKey, and growing discussions among clients and friends about the current state, regulation, and compliance of the crypto industry.

He said that during his years working in Hong Kong, he clearly felt Web3 "entering everyone's daily work and life more and more." This change gave him a bit of FOMO and led him to seriously study the crypto industry starting in 2024.

His first proactive experience with Crypto was due to the Trump coin in 2024. After downloading the exchange app, his initial reaction was simple: "What is a chain? What are the differences between different chains?" He wasn't an expert on the industry from the start and had to relearn from the most basic level.

But he saw a deeper opportunity. Compared to the traditional secondary market, he sees the crypto industry as more like a primary market, potentially "a product that can bring about change from the settlement layer."

Later, he spent over a year observing, trading, communicating, and comparing. It wasn't until he saw Bitget's UEX concept and direction that he felt it aligned with his career development choices and decided to apply.

Before making the final decision, he said he "actually didn't have many concerns." If there was one, it was only:

"The courage to take the fight."

For Ethan, joining Bitget means taking the market sensitivity, channel capabilities, and team-building experience he honed in overseas finance and re-validating them in a faster, newer market that desperately needs to break through its existing bubble.

Lily: The Longer She Worked in Operations at Futu, the More She Knew Opportunities Couldn't Wait

Lily worked at Futu for over three years, mainly responsible for community operations and wealth management-related business.

She handled hot topic market operations, user engagement and conversion for funds and ETFs, KOL identification and maintenance, and also participated in investment strategy meetings, official fund institutional account onboarding, and content collaborations. These tasks taught her early on that financial operations rely not just on processes, but also on timing.

When market trends emerge, content must follow. When users are active, conversion must be captured. When hot topics arise, operational actions must be taken immediately.

Being even slightly slow means losing the user's momentum.

Traditional brokerages gave her solid training. Clear processes, mature regulations, and well-defined user paths helped her build a fundamental understanding of financial users and wealth management business. But the longer she worked, the more she felt another side: operational actions are easily constrained by compliance and organizational boundaries. Often, ideas weren't the problem; the issue was feasibility, timing, and the extent to which they could be executed.

Her later focus on the crypto industry also started from observing users and the market.

She found the industry to be "very cutting-edge," with high user trading frequency and rapid market changes, where information and opportunities flow much faster than in traditional finance. Before joining Bitget, her understanding of Crypto wasn't particularly deep, mainly built through X, exchange announcements, industry news, and her own basic trading experience.

Her biggest concerns were the industry's volatility and whether her own growth rate could keep pace with the company and the industry's development speed.

Crypto exchanges have a faster pace, more direct user feedback, and higher demands for operational response speed and data-driven judgment. In a traditional brokerage, an operational action might emphasize safety and compliance; here, hot assets, user behavior, and market sentiment change much faster, requiring quicker judgment and faster action from operations.

Lily doesn't underestimate this change.

She knows it will be more demanding and that she needs to catch up on a lot of industry knowledge. But she also sees that the community operations, user conversion, KOL maintenance, and wealth management experience accumulated in traditional brokerages haven't expired. They've just been placed in a new market with faster feedback and denser changes.

For her, the appeal of Bitget isn't just the new industry itself.

It's also the faster growth rate, the stronger global perspective, and the more frequent knowledge sharing. She later mentioned that one of her biggest gains was discovering "that she could actually adapt to a fast-paced work environment."

She came from traditional finance with experience, and within this new rhythm, she is re-discovering the boundaries of her own capabilities.

Joyce: Bringing Three Years of Perspective from an Information Desk, Shifting from Content Creation to Value Validation

Joyce worked in the information business at Futu for 3.5 years, responsible for producing and organizing stock and financial information content. She dealt daily with user demand for information and the pace of market changes. When market moves occurred, users wanted to know what happened quickly; when assets fluctuated, they wanted to understand the reasons behind it. She learned to explain information clearly within traditional finance and became accustomed to adhering to compliance and expression boundaries.

Initially, her understanding of the crypto industry was limited to news and social media, and she had some concerns about its volatility, compliance, and future. "I knew the pace was fast, staff turnover was high, and stability was an issue," Joyce recalled. But she also saw it as a new space to validate the value of her content. User reactions were direct, market feedback was rapid. "I wanted to see if the content I create could be re-validated in a new market."

What ultimately led her to join Bitget wasn't just industry trends and short-term hype, but a combination of personal growth opportunities and career judgment. She said, "Let's give it a try and see if my professional experience can have an impact here."

After joining, her most intuitive feeling was the fast pace, direct feedback, and clearer responsibilities. In a brokerage, content often required layers of approval, leading to slow responses. At Bitget, every piece of content and every output quickly shows feedback on user activity, retention, trading, and repurchase. She felt this wasn't just a job change, but a re-evaluation of her professional abilities.

For traditional finance colleagues still on the fence, she advises: "Don't just look at short-term hype; pay more attention to whether the platform takes a long-term view, whether the team is professional, and whether the role can truly stretch your capabilities." This logic underpinned her own choice.

Joyce brought her professional skills accumulated in traditional finance to a new market with faster feedback and denser changes, re-validating the value of content and reaffirming her core competitiveness in financial information and content creation.

Myooi: Futu's Japan Market Creative, Who Didn't Want Creativity Trapped in Processes

Myooi worked at Futu for 2 years, responsible for social media ad creatives and growth ideas during the POC exploration phase in the Japanese market.

This type of work heavily relies on speed. Whether you can capitalize on a trend or get a piece of creative to perform well depends on how quickly ideas reach the market and how fast data feedback comes.

But in a traditional brokerage, creatives first had to go through layers of checks from local legal and compliance teams. She said, "By the time the process is finished, the timeliness is long gone," and sometimes, even after repeated revisions, the creative was still rejected outright.

For someone in growth and creative work, this kind of attrition is very draining. You know an expression might work, and you know users are talking about it, but the opportunity has already cooled down before the creative even gets out.

Before joining Bitget, Myooi didn't know much about Crypto. She admitted she was more of an "outsider" who only occasionally followed industry trends and was also worried about Web3's stability. External voices on the industry were always split, half bullish and half bearish, leaving her unsure of its long-term development.

What truly moved her was Bitget's UEX philosophy and its integration with traditional Web2. She said she already had some dissatisfaction with existing traditional financial systems, and Bitget's advocated UEX "deeply resonated with me."

After joining Bitget, her most significant feeling was the expanded creative space. The burden of cumbersome approvals was reduced, allowing ideas to be tested faster, with quicker data feedback.

Of course, this isn't easy. She says the pace here is very fast, emphasizing agility and result-orientation. Sometimes, when inspiration strikes, she gets so busy she forgets to eat. With more creative freedom comes the pressure to continuously produce viral content.

But for Myooi, at least the distance between ideas and users has shortened.

Her past experience of building things from 0 to 1 in the Japanese market, her understanding of traditional finance user psychology, and her judgment on growth creatives can all be reused at Bitget. In her own words, bringing these fundamental business logics to Web3 and combining them with the high degree of freedom in creative expression here creates "extremely easy chemical reactions."

Abby: Years of Designing Financial Products, Re-understanding "Delivery" in a Faster Rhythms

Abby had years of experience in financial product design and also had experience in the crypto industry.

Her first contact with the crypto industry was around 2018 when she joined Huobi and had her own investment experience. So, compared to some traditional finance professionals just entering Crypto, she wasn't unfamiliar with the industry. Before joining Bitget, she didn't have many industry-level concerns; her choice was more driven by "career development considerations" and because "the work content seemed like a good fit."

What truly made her feel the change was the speed.

She said Bitget's pace is much faster. "For example, a feature that might take half a year to launch at Futu would be required to launch within 2 months at most here."

For a product manager, this means many things are compressed.

Faster requirement judgment, faster decision-making on solutions, faster cross-team communication, and faster delivery and review cycles. In a traditional brokerage, a financial product feature could be refined over a longer period. At Bitget, market changes and business needs push the product forward.

This isn't just about increased workload.

For Abby, the bigger challenge is re-understanding financial products within the crypto industry. She mentioned needing to learn Web3 industry knowledge, like DeFi concepts, which she hadn't encountered much before.

But she also appreciates the pace here.

She mentioned that Bitget makes her feel the "team's efficient output" and "the product's rapid development." Her biggest gain has been understanding how financial products are made in the crypto industry.

Her past product skills and brokerage knowledge haven't been set aside. They've just been placed into a faster system this time.

For a product manager, this means pressure, but also more direct growth feedback.

Vera: Responsible for Content at Futu, She Began Wanting to Broaden Her Skillset

Vera worked at Futu for two years, primarily responsible for investor trading content.

Back then, she was more familiar with the content aspect: when market trends came, how to explain information clearly; when users needed to make judgments, how to articulate the trading logic. The role division in traditional brokerages was also clearer, "with many single-business-line execution staff and clearly defined responsibilities."

But she later started thinking about pushing her own abilities further.

She seriously considered the crypto industry mainly for "personal development opportunities." She said she "wanted to further broaden her skill set" and was also looking for a remote opportunity. Before joining Bitget, her biggest worry was compliance, which she gradually overcame through communication with friends and insights shared by industry professionals. She feels Bitget "provides relatively good security protection for employees."

After joining Bitget, her role quickly changed.

She started working in event growth operations, responsible for the operational activities and product operations of the CFD business. Previously, her focus was more on content output; now she is involved in the entire process from event research, planning, communication with product, execution, to review.

This was a very direct change for her.

She says Bitget has a "faster pace," with individual business lines usually operating in small teams where people back each other up; the overall team atmosphere is quite open. In contrast, Futu was relatively more conservative, with "less room for employee innovation."

She likes this sense of more direct results.

In her view, the crypto industry "focuses heavily on results and wants to achieve them quickly," which is very different from the slow pace of traditional industries. She also appreciates Bitget's "growth speed and innovative atmosphere."

For Vera, joining Bitget wasn't simply about changing operations jobs.

She is still working in finance-related business, but this time, she is no longer just staying at the content output stage. She needs to get closer to events, products, users, and results, and push the boundaries of her capabilities outward within a faster rhythm.

Cecilia: After Years in Advertising, First Time Finding a Balance Between Work and Life

Cecilia previously worked on performance advertising at Futu. At Bitget, she works in the advertising data product group within the advertising platform, responsible for the strategy and execution of various advertising testing projects.

She clearly sees the differences between the two industries. Traditional brokerages operate within a more mature financial system with "clear and stable regulatory frameworks." The crypto industry has more disparate policies across countries, is still in a stage of development and exploration, and has relatively more uncertain compliance paths.

She also knows that market volatility is higher here, the pace is faster, and user segmentation is more pronounced. The differences between users, from beginners to high-frequency traders, mean their cognition and behavior vary greatly. This implies that advertising, creatives, audience targeting, and conversion paths require constant trial and error.

So, Cecilia's choice wasn't simply about being attracted to a "new industry."

Her serious consideration of the crypto industry was driven partly by "optimism about its development prospects" and partly because the remote work style was very important to her. At the time, a family member was seriously ill, requiring frequent travel between her primary residence and hometown. Remote work gave her the space to continue working while attending to her real-life responsibilities.

But what truly helped her decide was the role and the team itself.

She mentioned that Bitget's interview process was "simple and quick," with professional communication; the JD was clearly written, showing the company had deeply considered the role fit, and revealed the leader's professionalism in the business.

After joining, she felt the differences more directly.

Bitget is "flatter and more open," with a stronger pace and a good team atmosphere. Compared to the "reporting culture" and "upward management" she might encounter in traditional brokerages, she has seen almost none of that at Bitget.

She is also well aware that freedom has its price.

She says what attracts traditional finance professionals to the crypto industry is the "24/7 global liquidity, innovation density, and fairer tools." What requires adaptation is "no official end of day, self-accountability, high volatility, and mindset management."

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