In the crypto industry, many stories don’t start with a bang.

Faced with tight cash flow, unanswered cooperation requests, and extreme market conditions, newcomers often have to endure greater efforts and hardships when facing the powerful incumbents.

Every choice will be magnified into a result in the future. Some people say goodbye passively, while others use failure as a calibrator to repeatedly correct their course.

But fate always favors those who are unwilling to be mediocre and make a comeback.

The PUMP IPO incident brought the handling of different platforms under the same lens. Many exchanges encountered problems to varying degrees, but this up-and-coming platform obtained the largest quota among all its peers, and its handling solution also received the most praise.

The protagonist of the story is Bitget.

This year marks Bitget's first seven years. In fact, it was not easy for Bitget to reach where it is today. It even faced a situation where its startup capital was running out.

How did this exchange achieve its transformation from a supporting player to a leading player in the industry over the past seven years? What kind of resolve does the recently launched UEX (Universal Exchange) represent? We will delve into Bitget's core transformations and initiatives to uncover the underlying developments.

From 2018 to 2025, the reform was in its first seven years.

1. USDT, a bold move, finally saw social trading growth.

In 2018, the crypto market was experiencing a severe downturn. For the fledgling Bitget, this was undoubtedly the most brutal entrepreneurial test. With a lean team of just a few dozen people, they had to maintain their spot trading business while expanding into the contract market, only to encounter difficulties on both fronts.

With funds nearly exhausted, Bitget made a drastic decision: suspending its spot trading business and focusing all its resources on futures trading. This seemingly risky decision laid the foundation for its subsequent rise.

A turning point came in July 2019. Through in-depth market research, the team keenly identified users' urgent need for USDT-settled forward contracts. Bitget responded quickly and launched an innovative forward contract product. This decision proved to be a timely one—the product's first-day trading volume exceeded $100 million, injecting strong momentum into the platform.

Innovation never ceases. At the end of 2019, they targeted a new, blue-chip market: social trading . In May 2020, they officially launched the copy trading feature, aiming to bridge the gap between professional and novice traders. However, while the initial product attracted hundreds of traders, the complex user experience became a bottleneck for growth.

Faced with this challenge, at the end of 2020, the management team retreated to a remote hotel for a product redesign. Adhering to the design philosophy of "simplicity is the ultimate principle," they drastically streamlined redundant functionality and simplified complex operational processes. This redesign immediately broke through user experience bottlenecks, ushering in another wave of growth for the platform and solidifying Bitget's leading position in the contract business.

Three years later, Bitget restarted its spot business in 2021. Relying on its mature foundation, Bitget successfully counterattacked in the spot market, growing from a single contract trading platform to a comprehensive leading exchange that currently offers both spot and contract trading.

2. Acquisitions, Investments, and the Next Growth Point: Web 3 Ecosystem

In the crypto world, while most exchanges are still competing in the traditional business track, Bitget has begun to plan a bigger game - evolving from a single trading platform to a Web 3 ecosystem builder.

A key step in this transformation is the strategic acquisition of BitKeep Wallet.

In March 2023, Bitget announced it had acquired a controlling stake in BitKeep for $30 million. Five months later, BitKeep officially changed its name to Bitget Wallet, proposing a new vision of "faster transactions, better assets" and maintaining the independence of the wallet and exchange from the outset .

This acquisition is more than just a simple brand integration; it represents Bitget's strategic plan to build a comprehensive Web 3 ecosystem. In May 2025, Bitget Wallet underwent another brand upgrade, adopting the slogan "Crypto for Everyone," and has built a strong reputation among users.

In terms of product matrix, Bitget Wallet has built a complete ecosystem centered around four major scenarios: "transaction, financial management, payment, and exploration" :

• Supports cross-chain transactions across more than 20 public chains
• Innovatively launch the GetGas function to solve the fuel cost problems of new users
• Issued the Bitget Wallet Visa card, opening up payment channels between cryptocurrencies and traditional finance

"Crypto for Everyone" is more than just a slogan; its actions extend beyond wallets. Bitget Onchain and GetAgent are two key products Bitget recently launched to help users trade.

Bitget Onchain connects CEXs and DEXs, allowing users to directly trade assets in their Bitget spot accounts on-chain without manually crossing chains or switching wallets, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for users. In September of this year, the Onchain platform announced support for all on-chain assets across ETH, BSC, Base, and SOL chains, expanding the trading boundaries of traditional financial assets and becoming the world's first UEX (Universal Exchange) to support the full range of assets.

GetAgent is Bitget's first all-in-one cryptocurrency trading assistant. AI is a buzzword this year, and industries across the board are exploring how to integrate it. Bitget's answer to trading is to make it as easy as chatting.

GetAgent uses AI technology to simplify cryptocurrency trading processes. It integrates over 50 professional trading tools and provides a wide range of services, including market analysis, strategy development, smart money tracking, risk assessment, and trade execution. For example, you can find out about today's market trends, the specific status of a specific token, and popular on-chain currencies.

Recently, when RWA was hot, Bitget also took the lead in cooperating with Ondo Finance to launch more than 100 US stock tokens and US stock contracts.

Crypto for Everyone, Bitget is giving users an answer through various means such as wallets, chains, and AI.

The recently proposed UEX (Universal Exchange) aims to break the impossible triangle of user experience, asset richness, and security in exchanges, integrate the advantages of CEX and DEX, and create a unified platform for users.

Bitget CEO Gracy said: UEX will integrate a unified ecosystem of multiple asset categories, including all mainstream tokens and innovative assets, seamless integration of traditional assets and crypto assets, true 24/7 operation, ultra-fast experience and institutional-level risk control, etc.

While many people were unaware that Nasdaq had officially announced its application to launch "24/5" trading services in March of this year, Gracy firmly believed that the real future was not just "24/5", but "24/7" - an uninterrupted, borderless, and frictionless financial world.

UEX currently supports products such as US stocks and US stock contracts. In the future, we plan to gradually incorporate high-quality global assets such as stocks, ETFs, gold, and foreign exchange, allowing users to seamlessly and conveniently participate in global market transactions. For more details, please refer to: CEO's Seventh Anniversary Open Letter

3. Entering the institutional market, upgrading from "barbaric growth" to "professionalization"

While maintaining its advantages in retail business, in 2025, Bitget began to comprehensively layout the institutional service market, and its business focus began to shift towards ToB.

Better fees and experience. Bitget is the first to launch the "PRO" plan, an upgraded version of its VIP service offering for institutional users. Institutional users not only enjoy more favorable trading fees, but also receive higher API call rates and an optimized trading environment, truly achieving a professional-level trading experience.

Fund security is always a primary concern for institutional clients. To address this need, Bitget has innovatively launched a professional fund custody service. Through a "1:1 entrusted mapping" mechanism, institutional clients' funds are locked in a custody wallet, ensuring both asset security and trading flexibility. This dual-security mechanism has significantly enhanced the trust of institutional clients.

Liquidity Incentive Program. Regarding liquidity management, Bitget has launched a more competitive incentive program for market makers. By optimizing the fee structure and establishing a dynamic reward mechanism, the platform has attracted a large number of high-quality liquidity providers. Currently officially announced partners include:

Vataga Crypto optimizes the execution speed and liquidity of high-frequency and professional transactions, and provides seamless access to Bitget's incentive mechanism for day traders.

DWF Labs, in partnership with Bitget, is working to enhance USD 1’s spot and derivatives liquidity.

Pulsar provides liquidity support for spot and derivatives markets, enhancing Bitget's overall liquidity depth.

For exchanges, balancing the consumer and business sides of the market can demonstrate strong resilience during market fluctuations. While the needs of the business side are relatively more difficult to meet or more targeted, this step is also a key step in Bitget's gradual evolution from a trading platform for ordinary users to a comprehensive crypto service provider capable of meeting various professional needs.

Exchange infrastructure construction and the arms race for talent and compliance

4. Build foundations and talents, Bitget is working hard to develop young talents

The core of corporate competition is talent, and this is particularly true in the fields of AI and cryptocurrency. What makes Bitget so attractive to talent?

Is the year-end bonus the core competitiveness?

Of course not. Year-end bonuses are a form of merit-based rewards, rewarding those who create substantial value for the company. Multiple insiders revealed that Bitget has always adhered to a pragmatic approach to internal management, promoting flat management and fully empowering people.

Outstanding employees deserve appropriate authority and incentives. The company also promotes a culture of efficient and direct communication, encouraging team members to confront issues head-on and provide timely feedback, avoiding the inefficiencies associated with escalating issues. This management approach enables the company to maintain agility and competitiveness in a rapidly changing market.

As part of its talent development strategy, Bitget has launched a Global Graduate Program, targeting outstanding recent graduates with a global perspective and innovative spirit. This program offers diverse career development opportunities in operations, product development, marketing, and risk management, opening doors to the Web 3 industry while also injecting continued innovation into the company.

Currently, Bitget has grown into an international enterprise with over 2,000 employees. Through this comprehensive talent system, Bitget is building an innovative and adaptable global team, laying a solid foundation for the company's long-term development.

5. Raising money and innovating mechanisms: BGB is no longer just a single platform currency

In this particularly challenging market cycle for assets other than Bitcoin, Bitget's platform token, BGB, has demonstrated remarkable resilience. To date, BGB has seen a 372% year-to-date increase, making it one of the few high-quality assets to outperform Bitcoin. This achievement is due to Bitget's meticulously designed deflationary mechanism and comprehensive ecosystem.

In December 2024, Bitget released a new version of the BGB white paper and launched an unprecedented repurchase and destruction plan.

The platform has committed to destroying over $5 billion worth of BGB tokens, representing approximately 40% of the total supply. In the first round of destruction, Bitget permanently destroyed 800 million BGB tokens held by the core team, reducing the circulating supply to 1.2 billion, achieving 100% circulation and completely eliminating any possibility of reserved tokens or subsequent releases.

In 2025, Bitget innovatively launched the "dual-track destruction" mechanism.

On the one hand, the gas fees generated by users are counted based on the actual on-chain activities of the Bitget Wallet ecosystem and used as the destruction base;

On the other hand, a fixed percentage of destruction quota is set to build a self-driven supply and demand adjustment mechanism. This mechanism has achieved significant results in the first quarter of 2025, completing the destruction of 30,006,905 BGB, accounting for approximately 2.5% of the total supply, far exceeding the industry average.

In early September, BGB was upgraded to the Morph public chain token again, and 220 million $BGB were destroyed at one time, worth 1.09 billion US dollars!

So far, BGB has become the core token of the trinity of exchange, wallet, and public chain.

On centralized exchanges, BGB not only serves as a medium for paying transaction fees, but also serves as a crucial token for users to participate in platform governance and obtain various benefits. By holding BGB, users can enjoy transaction fee discounts and participate in innovative projects such as Launchpad, Launchpool, and PoolX.

In terms of wallets, BGB is connected through Bitget Wallet, giving users who hold BGB on the chain the opportunity to obtain airdrops from high-quality projects, transaction fee reductions, etc.

On the public chain, users can stake BGB on the Morph chain to participate in ecosystem development, provide liquidity in decentralized transactions, or use it as collateral for DeFi lending protocols. After becoming a Morph public chain token, its consumption scenarios have been directly expanded.

6. Build brand, reputation, and spend money on sponsorship and charity

When people mention Bitget, they often think of its iconic blue double-headed arrow and the image endorsement of global football superstar Messi. This is the result of Bitget's continuous efforts in brand building.

In terms of its visual identity system, Bitget adopted a "subtraction" strategy to streamline and upgrade its brand logo in July 2023. The new logo is centered around a simple two-way arrow , symbolizing Bitget's mission to connect traditional finance and digital assets.

In terms of brand endorsement, Bitget signed legendary football star Messi in 2022. This strategic choice paid off significantly after Messi led the Argentine team to win the World Cup, greatly enhancing the brand's global influence.

Subsequently, Bitget continued to expand its influence in the global market, adhering to a diversified sports marketing strategy, becoming the official cryptocurrency partner of the Spanish La Liga (LALIGA) in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. It also became the official partner of MotoGP, the world's top motorcycle road race.

In terms of charity, Bitget has reached a three-year charity cooperation with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to empower young women and educators in developing countries through innovative education models and the use of blockchain technology.

To deepen its global presence, Bitget is actively establishing regional operations centers in Asia and Latin America, with plans to expand into Europe and Africa. The platform's "Bitget Wallet Champion" global community influencer program is dedicated to cultivating "crypto evangelists" and promoting the adoption of Web 3 applications. Notably, Bitget has joined the UNICEF Game Changers Coalition to support blockchain skills training programs in eight countries, demonstrating its commitment to promoting inclusive finance.

7. Compliance, safety, and license acquisition

In the digital asset industry, security is always the overriding priority.

Since pioneering the Proof of Reserves mechanism in December 2022, Bitget has maintained regular monthly updates to ensure a user asset reserve ratio of at least 1:1. As of September 2025, the platform's total reserve ratio had climbed to 186%, demonstrating strong asset reserve capabilities.

The latest audit report shows that Bitget maintains sufficient reserves across all major assets. The platform holds 30,753.11 Bitcoins, while user assets total just 9,395.3, resulting in a high reserve ratio of 327%. Regarding stablecoins, USDT reserves reach 1.945 billion, covering user holdings of 1.93 billion, for a 101% coverage ratio. USDC reserves also remain healthy, with the platform holding 143 million and user assets totaling 114 million, for a reserve ratio of 125%. Ethereum is even more prominent, with the platform holding 308,082.22 Bitcoins and a total of 139,140.23 in user accounts, resulting in a reserve ratio of 221%.

To further enhance user asset security, Bitget has established a $300 million Protection Fund, which currently stands at $700 million, creating a dual asset protection system. This fund is designed to provide users with additional security and effectively respond to extreme market fluctuations or unexpected risk events.

Bitget is also continuing its efforts in compliance construction.

In April 2025, Chief Legal Officer Hon Ng reiterated the platform's commitment to global compliance in an open letter. Within this global compliance landscape, Bitget has secured over eight regulatory licenses in countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and El Salvador, and continues to advance compliance in more jurisdictions.

From an unknown contract exchange to the world's leading digital asset platform, Bitget has achieved breakthroughs again and again in seven years.

Bitget's recently released August 2025 transparency report reveals the latest developments and key progress in the platform's core business areas. According to data from The Block and Coinglass , Bitget ranks among the top three global CEX exchanges in terms of open interest in two major cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Bitcoin's open interest has exceeded $10 billion, while Ethereum's has remained in the $5-7 billion range, reaching $6 billion by the end of August.

Furthermore, CoinDesk's "Market Data In-Depth Report" noted that Bitget's platform leads the market in ETH and SOL liquidity. From November 2023 to June 2025, Bitget's cumulative derivatives trading volume reached $11.5 trillion . In 2025, the platform's average monthly trading volume reached $750 billion, with nearly 90% coming from derivatives.

As of July 2, 2025, Coingecko data showed that Bitget's contract and spot trading volumes ranked third and second in the world, respectively.

After seven years of development, Bitget has made the leap from the fringes of the industry to the global stage. But the real story has just begun.

UEX (Universal Exchange) is Bitget's vision for the future. It's more than a simple splicing of features; it's a game-changer: breaking the boundaries between centralization and decentralization, allowing users to seamlessly switch trading scenarios and freely control their assets on a single platform.

If the past seven years have been Bitget's "wild growth," then UEX will be the starting point of its "new civilization." It carries the ambition to reshape the exchange landscape and ignites the spark that will propel the crypto industry to a higher level.

Seven years is just the beginning; UEX is the real beginning. The story of Bitget is far from over.