Bitget Chief Legal Officer's 8th Anniversary Open Letter: 8 Years On, Responsibility Remains Unchanged

Article by Hon Ng, Chief Legal Officer of Bitget

Eight years is a milestone worth remembering for Bitget.

Looking back from this eighth-anniversary vantage point, the platform's starting point, its transformations, and its growth have become all the clearer.

Eight years ago, Bitget was still a trading platform focused on crypto derivatives. Eight years later, we have served over 125 million users and, under the vision of a Universal Exchange (UEX), have gradually expanded into global multi-asset categories including US equities, gold, and foreign exchange.

Over these eight years, Bitget's changes have not been limited to growth in scale. From an initial focus on crypto trading to today's continuous expansion of asset boundaries and market boundaries, the users, assets, and trading scenarios the platform connects are all steadily extending.

But one thing has never changed: the farther the platform goes, the heavier the responsibility on our shoulders.

When users have more trading choices, we must safeguard those choices with a more solid foundation; when the platform enters more markets, we must respond to the expectations that come with them with higher standards.

For Bitget, this means greater transparency, a more comprehensive security system, and the compliance capabilities to support long-term development across different markets.

More importantly, these standards cannot remain stuck in the past.

As the platform grows, standards must grow too; as the market changes, responsibility must advance along with it.

This is also our deeper understanding of the word "responsibility" after eight years.

Making Trust Visible and Verifiable

When users entrust their assets to the platform, the platform has a responsibility to make that trust traceable and verifiable.

In December 2022, Bitget launched its Proof of Reserves. Since then, we have consistently published reserve data every month, ensuring that user assets are backed at least 1:1, and through a Merkle Tree verification mechanism, enabling users to independently verify whether their assets are included in the platform's reserves.

We have always believed that transparency is not a promise—it is sustained action. As of September 2026, Bitget has published 46 consecutive Proof of Reserves reports, with an overall reserve ratio of 135% and an average reserve ratio consistently maintained above 120%.

On the occasion of our eighth anniversary, we are expanding the coverage of our Proof of Reserves from an initial 4 assets to 19, including on-chain traditional financial assets such as XAUT.

As users are able to trade an increasing number of assets, the responsibilities the platform must bear should extend accordingly. Wherever the boundaries of assets expand, the scope of transparency and verification should follow.

But we are well aware that user protection goes far beyond reserves. It concerns account security, market order, and the management and controls behind every mechanism of the platform. Therefore, we have built another layer of protection.

In 2022, Bitget established the Protection Fund, with an initial size of $300 million, providing users with additional financial protection in extreme circumstances.

As of August 2026, the fund's average valuation stood at approximately $382 million.

We have always believed that security is not a single point of defense, but a mechanism that runs through the entire process: identifying risks at the source, strengthening protection in the details, and ensuring that every potential risk point has a corresponding security barrier.

This is not just about user protection—it is about how we respond to every measure of trust and shoulder the responsibility that matches it.

Protection, More Than One Layer

Security has no endpoint, and no single tool can address all risks.

Therefore, we have built a platform-wide security mechanism: from the stable operation of underlying infrastructure, to account login and device management, to trading and asset withdrawal—ensuring that security safeguards run through the entire process of users' interaction with the platform.

Users can use security features such as two-factor authentication (2FA), FIDO2 and WebAuthn Passkeys, anti-phishing codes, and device controls; at the same time, the platform also provides backend protection for every user action through withdrawal protection, transaction monitoring, anomalous behavior detection, and anti-fraud systems.

Moreover, protecting user security also means proactively taking on the responsibility of maintaining the trading environment.

Earlier this year, Bitget launched the Market Integrity and Token Accountability Framework, further strengthening ongoing oversight of listed assets, project teams, and market makers, and promoting accountability among all market participants through more comprehensive monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.

We aim to identify anomalous wallet behavior, market manipulation, insufficient liquidity, and other suspicious trading activity earlier, while further clarifying the responsibilities of project teams and market makers in the market. Once potential violations are identified, we will take appropriate measures based on the specific circumstances, including strengthening risk warnings, restricting account functions, freezing accounts, suspending trading, or delisting relevant assets where appropriate.

Maintaining market order is also about maintaining every user's confidence in the market.

Entering More Markets Means Shouldering More Responsibility

The same principle runs through our compliance work. The more markets Bitget serves, the more diverse and complex the regulatory environments we face.

Different jurisdictions have their own regulatory frameworks, asset classifications, and risk requirements, and the demands they place on the platform vary accordingly. For us, entering a new market also means reunderstanding local rules and building compliance capabilities that match the corresponding regulatory framework.

Currently, Bitget's regulatory footprint covers multiple jurisdictions including Argentina, Australia, El Salvador, Georgia (Tbilisi Free Zone), Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, with corresponding registrations, licenses, or regulatory approvals obtained.

Facing different markets and different asset classes, we continue to refine compliance mechanisms such as KYC and KYB processes, anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) controls, sanctions list screening, and transaction monitoring, while maintaining ongoing communication with regulators.

The development of UEX has also given this responsibility new meaning.

As crypto assets, tokenized equities, commodities, and other assets enter a unified trading environment, the platform must address different market structures, trading mechanisms, and risk characteristics, and must also enable security capabilities originally scattered across different assets and businesses to operate in coordination on a single platform.

To this end, Bitget has been continuously refining the UEX Security Standard, covering areas such as verifiable solvency, multi-asset risk isolation, data and privacy protection, dynamic monitoring, and application and infrastructure defense.

As the boundaries of the market continue to expand, the responsibilities the platform must bear must extend accordingly.

Eight Years On, Responsibility Remains Unchanged

After eight years in this industry, we have come to understand more clearly that no set of standards can remain static. Transparency must keep pace with the platform's development, security must keep pace with changes in risk, and compliance must keep pace with the evolution of markets and regulatory environments.

Eight years of experience have made us more certain: growth and responsibility have never been two separate things. Every step the platform takes forward gives users one more choice; at the same time, the scope of what we need to protect, verify, and take responsibility for also expands.

Eight years ago, users began entrusting their trust to Bitget.

Today, users encounter more diverse assets, richer choices, and a broader range of trading scenarios on Bitget. The platform responsibility that accompanies this is also heavier than it was eight years ago.

On this eighth anniversary, as we look back and reflect on Bitget's growth journey, it is also a reminder to ourselves: some things will change, and some things must not.

The platform can keep growing, the market can keep expanding, and products can keep innovating.

But the responsibility to protect user assets must not change.

The commitment to security and compliance must not change.

The transparency that allows users to see, understand, and verify how the platform operates must not change.

Throughout this journey, what has truly remained unchanged is our reverence for the trust users place in us.

The theme of Bitget's eighth anniversary is "Trading Extremism." What this phrase represents is not only the infrastructure and product strength the platform can offer—only a platform built on security, guided by transparency, and grounded in responsibility can enable users to trade with greater peace of mind.

Eight years is a milestone and also a new starting point. Looking back today, we see the changes along the way, and we understand the responsibility on our shoulders even more clearly.

The farther we go, the more we must not forget why we set out; the more users we serve, the more we must hold every entrustment close to heart.

Entering our ninth year, we will continue to move forward. These unwavering commitments will remain the foundation of our journey ahead.