专访MEXC产品总监Vivien：老玩家纷纷退场，我们凭什么用AI和RWA杀出重围？
- 核心观点：MEXC产品负责人Vivien Lin在访谈中阐述，交易所竞争已从单一叙事转向综合能力，MEXC正通过“模块化一站式”策略、AI驱动产品体验及零费率方案，在加密与传统金融融合趋势中构建护城河，并视永续合约为行业最具颠覆性的创新。
- 关键要素：
- MEXC TradFi交易量自2025年1月以来增长100倍（去年11月至今增长60余倍），已上线350多个传统资产，认为传统金融套利资金流将成为关键增长变量。
- “一站式”并非堆砌功能，而是将KYC、下单组件等底层能力“原子化”拆解，灵活适配不同市场的监管要求与用户需求，缩短合规站点的落地周期。
- AI战略分为用户可感知与不可感知两层：前端提供AI News、Smart Search等工具辅助决策；后台利用大数据识别用户情绪（如恐慌），并通过“首单包赔”等福利减低交易门槛。
- 为解决跟单“选择成本高”的痛点，团队梳理90年代以来投资大师理论并进行回测，通过AI蒸馏策略，以“AI Strategy”形式向用户开放跟单，而非简单堆叠带单员。
- 行业最具颠覆性的创新是Perpetual永续合约，其以即时、平等方式为散户提供主经纪商级别的杠杆服务，突破了传统金融中高门槛的借贷壁垒。
- 针对行情，Vivien认为比特币在55,000至60,000美元区间已形成有效支撑，尽管美联储与日本央行政策存在不确定性，但当前波动率指标构筑强支撑，交易动能向上。
Original: Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author: Qin Xiaofeng (@QinXiaofeng888)
In Bali this August, the scorching sea breeze carried the fervor of the crypto world as Coinfest Asia 2026 kicked off. Amid the bustling venue, I met Vivien Lin, Head of Product at MEXC.
Just prior, the Alpha Arena S03 trading competition, primarily sponsored by MEXC Ventures, had concluded—20 elite traders from 12 countries battled it out in a real-time DEMO environment. Japanese competitor Arumando staged a remarkable comeback to clinch the championship at the last moment, with contenders from the Philippines and South Korea taking second and third place. The $100,000 prize pool found its owners, and over 10,000 viewers online and offline witnessed this Asia-Pacific trading spectacle. MEXC CEO Vugar personally attended to award the winners, stating that "supporting Alpha Arena is a key step in our talent discovery and innovation drive."
Riding the post-competition momentum, I sat down with Vivien for a conversation. Over the past few years, MEXC has evolved far beyond its reputation as an exchange that simply "lists new coins fast." Its asset offerings have expanded from crypto to US equities, precious metals, and commodities, covering over 3,000 digital assets. TradFi trading volume has surged 60-fold in six months, and the platform has also launched a zero-fee strategy encompassing 40 million users globally. This established platform is reshaping industry perceptions through data and product innovation, and Vivien, standing at the forefront of product development, attributes it all to "user-centric long-termism." (Note: Vivien serves as MEXC's Head of Product, responsible for global product planning, strategy, and implementation.)
Throughout our conversation, she repeatedly emphasized "not focusing solely on the present." While some legacy players were forced to exit due to outdated products and shrinking liquidity, MEXC has stepped into the spotlight through system upgrades and AI initiatives. She shared how AI enables novices and experts to see "two different worlds" upon entry, and candidly acknowledged that the pain point of Copy Trading cannot be solved merely by stacking more lead traders—it requires AI to distill master strategies and lower users' decision-making barriers.
Regarding the industry's buzzword "one-stop," her answer wasn't about simply piling on features, but rather atomizing and modularizing underlying capabilities to enable flexible and efficient compliant operations across different markets. Even more impressive was her advocacy for perpetual contracts—in her view, they represent a "leveraged equality" gift from the crypto world to retail investors in traditional finance.
From a nine-year traditional finance trader to a crypto product leader, Vivien's cross-disciplinary perspective lent this exchange both an analytical framework and practical warmth. Here is the interview transcript. Enjoy~
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The Endgame for Exchanges Is a One-Stop Platform
Odaily Planet Daily: Crypto exchanges have long been regarded as one of the most profitable sectors. In the past July, a wave of legacy players including BitMEX exited the market, overturning conventional wisdom. In your view, is running a crypto exchange still a good business? Why are so many legacy players exiting?
Vivien: Rather than calling centralized exchanges a highly profitable business, I'd say the network effects have become increasingly pronounced. Why do I say that? Because we're seeing user demands shift.
For instance, around 2020, narratives (storytelling) mattered a lot. But now, we're witnessing an accelerating convergence between traditional finance and the crypto space. People care more about whether they can access assets with genuine investment value—this has become the primary motivation for choosing a trading platform or engaging in trading activities. Consequently, platforms that previously relied on single narratives and offered relatively simple products are now facing significant business challenges.
Secondly, in today's market, when an exchange accumulates a large user base and substantial product depth, it enters a virtuous cycle—more users bring better liquidity, which in turn provides the resources and community to develop richer products. For emerging exchanges, however, their product and business strategies may not be as forward-looking. They'll find their products can no longer meet user needs. Fewer users then lead to poorer liquidity, leaving even fewer resources to invest in products that could yield long-term benefits.
I'm fortunate that in this cycle, MEXC's accumulated investments in technology, products, and global user acquisition have finally been validated. Precisely when market conditions were unfavorable, these forward-looking investments pushed us further to the forefront.
Odaily Planet Daily: Many people previously held the stereotype that MEXC was an exchange with fast listings of small-cap coins and rich asset offerings. But that perception is changing—you're now deeply exploring not just crypto assets but also US equities, precious metals, commodities, and more. What drove this transformation? What considerations went into this shift at MEXC?
Vivien: Users are always changing, and so is the market. As cryptocurrency moves from niche to mainstream, the demands on exchanges become entirely different. Previously, the competition revolved around listing speed; now it's about asset screening capability—can you bring truly valuable assets to users? With advancing compliance and the positive shift in the US regulatory environment, the user base is becoming increasingly diverse. Whether the system can handle this diversity has become the new challenge.
Although MEXC has always been labeled as "asset-rich," we recognized early on that breadth alone isn't enough—depth matters too. We proactively initiated system upgrades to make trading faster and smoother, striving for excellence from liquidity to user experience. So when the TradFi opportunity emerged, we were able to respond swiftly on both technological and product fronts, quickly launching products aligned with current market developments and user needs.
Often, we can't just focus on the present. When you're profitable today, you need to think one step, even two steps ahead, and have contingency plans ready for future market evolution and regulatory trends.
Odaily Planet Daily: I noticed that CoinGecko published a report indicating MEXC has seen a significant surge in TradFi trading volume and considerable market share expansion. Could you share some details about this?
Vivien: TradFi is indeed our core focus area recently. In terms of data, from January 2025 to now, our TradFi trading volume has grown 100-fold; from November last year to now, it's grown over 60-fold in just over six months—that's extremely rapid growth.
Behind these numbers lies the tightly coordinated effort of our product development, operations, and marketing teams. We've currently listed over 350 TradFi assets. Going forward, we'll continue monitoring user demand shifts and market hotspots, sourcing more quality assets within regulatory frameworks to provide richer trading opportunities.
Odaily Planet Daily: I've also noticed MEXC is now championing a "one-stop" platform strategy. A one-stop approach implies continuously expanding boundaries and incorporating various new products. Could this make the platform increasingly bloated and crowded, potentially undermining core trading efficiency?
Vivien: The key to "one-stop" isn't about how many features you pile up, but how we define it. My understanding is—a one-stop approach first requires a sufficiently robust technical foundation and product infrastructure. It's the prerequisite for everything built on top.
Before 2023, the industry standard practice was "one product fits all globally." But when the compliance wave arrived, this approach quickly became obsolete—regulatory requirements vary dramatically across markets, and a single solution cannot fit all regions. Simultaneously, user demographics shifted from homogeneous to diverse, with users of different trading experience and risk appetites having vastly different product needs.
The core question this poses for our product and engineering teams is: Is the foundation solid enough? Are risk controls comprehensive? Is performance stable? Is latency sufficiently low? These are the cornerstones of all product decisions.
At the user-facing level, we face another challenge: Can we break down the user experience to the atomic level? For instance, KYC is one atom that includes facial recognition and address verification—can these be further broken down? Can components within the order placement function, such as TWAP, VWAP, and Iceberg orders, operate independently? When we atomize all of these, we can flexibly adapt to different user needs across markets as well as varying regulatory demands.
The value of atomization is especially evident on the front end. Operations, marketing, and compliance teams now have more freely combinable "modules." Take localized deployment as an example: some markets permit high leverage while others don't; some support derivatives trading while others are spot-only. Previously, we needed to build separate websites for each market. Now, we can simply rearrange and recombine atomic modules to quickly launch a compliant platform meeting local regulatory requirements, dramatically shortening the deployment cycle.
From a one-stop perspective, it's more like a one-stop foundation upon which people can DIY products that suit their market development needs. From the user's perspective, it's the AI experience we mentioned—a newcomer might see simple information like "BTC is up, here's what Trump said yesterday"; an experienced trader might be told "Here's the current open interest and funding rate—want a MACD trading strategy?" This is what we aim to achieve: entering through one gateway, but seeing different worlds.
User First + AI-Driven Trading Experience Upgrade
Odaily Planet Daily: More exchanges are venturing into traditional assets. In this wave of homogenized competition, what do you believe gives MEXC the ultimate edge to win? Could you share some notable achievements?
Vivien: Regarding "winning," we rarely discuss that word internally—we care more about how we can earn a distinct place in users' minds for MEXC. To that end, we're advancing two to three key initiatives.
First is our global zero-fee strategy. This is a highly forward-looking market expansion tactic at MEXC with a simple goal: allow more retail users worldwide to enter our ecosystem at minimal cost and experience MEXC's products across all dimensions firsthand.
Second is speed. Internally, we often talk about "MEXC speed," which stems from exceptional synergy between our product, engineering, and marketing teams—a level of coordination rarely seen in this industry. When an opportunity emerges, we align quickly and execute rapidly. As you mentioned earlier, the moment the TradFi window opened, we could immediately list real stocks and swiftly redirect core resources and market focus toward traditional assets with clear trends like gold, silver, and crude oil.
Third is AI. This is currently one of our most heavily funded areas. We've broken down our AI strategy into four to five layers, covering front-end user experience, internal operational efficiency, and underlying system infrastructure. This initiative launched around the end of last year, and nearly a year on, when you open MEXC, the entire trading experience has visibly transformed—cleaner interfaces, more efficient interactions. More importantly, different user tiers see different information: AI assesses your trading behavior and asset preferences to determine whether you're a novice or an advanced player. Novices see foundational concept guidance, while advanced users are directed toward deeper tools like AI Strategy.
When we integrate AI technology early, deeply, and broadly across all our products and business philosophies, I believe this will build an exceptionally high moat for MEXC over the medium to long term.
Odaily Planet Daily: Since you just mentioned AI, I'd like to know—beyond the user profiling you described, what other concrete product applications does AI have across the MEXC ecosystem?
Vivien: AI is infrastructure. We split its applications into two dimensions: user-perceptible and imperceptible.
On the perceptible side, we have a suite of tools—AI News, Smart Search, Smart Line, Smart Chart, and MEXC AI. Throughout the user's complete platform journey, they'll progressively encounter these smarter tools and assistants that help distill key market information, discover interesting assets, and match valuable activities and rewards.
Take AI news reading as an example. MEXC's AI Bot doesn't just output text summaries—it presents information in a multimedia format combining images and text, creating a more user-friendly reading experience. Trading itself is serious business, but we hope that with AI's support, users experience not just efficiency but a more enjoyable interaction. Multimodal capabilities are an area we're actively exploring, hoping to make this "enjoyment" a signature of the MEXC brand.
The imperceptible side operates behind the scenes. Our operational configuration system leverages AI and big data to achieve dramatic efficiency gains. More importantly, the platform can perceive user sentiment with greater nuance—identifying hesitation or panic during market volatility and lowering psychological barriers through welfare products like "first-order insurance." So AI, in invisible ways, helps the platform better understand users and deliver what they genuinely want.
Odaily Planet Daily: I've also noticed MEXC lists an extensive range of assets—officially over 3,000. With such a vast asset list, how should an ordinary user efficiently discover these assets? Has MEXC provided tools or products to help users quickly find quality assets and capture value?
Vivien: We're leveraging AI technology for this as well. The product I personally use most is AI Search, embedded directly in the search box. Previously, typing "BTC" would yield static results—derivatives, spot. Now, entering BTC gives users a market sentiment summary, the three most important real-time news items, and proactive recommendations for related products and campaigns. The design philosophy behind this product is to precisely answer users' most critical question within limited information space: "How exactly can I participate right now?"
This year marks MEXC's eighth anniversary, and our slogan is "Infinite Opportunities." But let me be clear: Infinite Opportunities absolutely does not mean Infinite Products—our goal isn't infinite asset accumulation, but infinitely shortening the distance between users and market opportunities. The prerequisite for shortening that distance is a deep understanding of users' genuine needs at specific market stages.
Take TradFi asset curation as an example. We consider not just popularity and investment value, but the alignment between "user profiles" and "asset types." MEXC's core user base is predominantly retail, fundamentally different from many platforms focused on institutional clients.
Therefore, whether it's the 3,000+ asset categories we've listed or the 350+ RWA products added in the past year, everything is precisely deployed under the guidance of user profiling. I believe every user who enters MEXC can find products that suit their trading style and deliver a comfortable experience.
Odaily Planet Daily: What's the internal prioritization logic for these products at MEXC?
Vivien: Our product resource allocation logic boils down to being user-centric—understanding what products users currently need. This places different demands on operations and product teams: operations must deeply understand the market, while product managers must plan for future trends.
Here, I'd like to introduce a concept: how do we distinguish between "real needs" and "imagined needs"? We've built a feedback loop covering community, business development, affiliate programs, and customer support, through which we receive massive volumes of feedback.
Product managers follow a first principle when processing feedback—listen to what users say, but observe what users do. Because users typically offer "their proposed solutions." If we accept these solutions wholesale, our product and engineering systems would buckle under the weight, and the product architecture would spiral out of control.
So our prioritization logic is: first define the core problem users face, rather than adopting their proposed solutions. After categorizing needs, we then look for product design paths where "a single solution can address multiple problems."
Take Copy Trading as an example. This feature is already widespread on other platforms, but MEXC has maintained a relatively measured pace. That's because we've identified that the real pain point isn't "too few choices," but "too high a selection cost"—users struggle to find trustworthy Master Traders and suffer repeated losses from following trades. If we simply addressed this by stacking more lead traders, we'd inevitably sink into a quagmire of cutthroat competition.
Our solution has two steps. First, introduce AI capabilities: we've assembled a dedicated product team to systematically review the theoretical frameworks of classic investment masters since the 1990s, conduct backtesting and strategy fitting against current market conditions, and use AI to filter strategies better suited to crypto's volatility characteristics, offering them to users as "AI Strategies" for copy trading. Second, optimize the visibility pathway for quality lead traders: many Master Traders excel at trading but lack self-promotion skills. We proactively create showcase opportunities for them, allowing their investment philosophies to connect closely with users and build user confidence in using Copy Trading.
Odaily Planet Daily: Based on the data you observe in the backend—whether it's the distilled master strategies or recommended Master Traders—what do users' ultimate returns look like?
Vivien: This question is rather delicate. Even recognized investment masters cannot guarantee profitability on every trade. What I want to emphasize is this: the relationship between AI and users should be one where AI enhances users' decision-making capabilities rather than replacing their judgment. No system can make the "right" decision on behalf of a user.
Therefore, when users consider using Copy Trading products, we first advise them to confront their own risk tolerance honestly. We provide complete data including historical drawdowns and risk ratings for strategies, but users must answer three questions themselves: "Can I withstand this level of drawdown?" "Does this strategy's risk profile match my capital size?" "Is this trading logic consistent with my investment philosophy?"
The first threshold in investing is always honesty with oneself. Once you pass that self-assessment, you can then select strategies, and finally rationally evaluate profit or loss outcomes.
