Bitget CEO: Tokenization Is The Most Important Mega Trend in Finance (Full Thesis)

Transcript

All right, you guys. Welcome back to Tokenization Tower after our intro here about the token equity debate and more. We have a lovely guest, Gracie Chen. Gracie, welcome to the tower. Good to have you here. >> It's a great place. >> Yes, it's nice. Right? It's great. I'm glad that you made it to New York. Um it's good to have you here. This is kind of becoming like the capital of crypto in a way. Um and so I'm sure you're busy, so we can kind of get right into it. CEO of Bitget, one of the longest standing exchanges serving global customers across crypto assets, commodities, equities, and more, kind of expanding into this universal exchange.

Really wanted to kind of just hone in today on the state of the state of affairs in digital assets because we're obviously what? Eight, nine months deep into this bear market. And every bear market that you've been through, that I've been through, things change. And the kind of common denominator is tokens are bad. Every bear market, tokens are bad. Nobody wants to to you know, own tokens. And this time it's a little bit different though, and I and I'm almost reluctant to say that, but we went through this entire period of different types of of tokens last cycle and previous, and we saw just a lot of frankly retail taking losses for tokens that don't have the right structures, for insiders, for market makers. Like there's just the whole nine yards. And so we're now in this era where token

holders are demanding investor rights in the same way that equity holders are, you know, earning the rights of their respective >> And they want to have voting rights and they go to the AGM. >> Yes. And they want to know what they're owning, right? And so we're we're currently today at the precipice of what feels like the inflection point of this token equity conversation that we've been having so on and so forth. And so maybe Gracie, just high-level from your perspective, what has changed from your view in the way that the token market is now kind of constructing itself based on previous bear markets? Where we at right now from from view and then we'll kind of get into the nuance.

>> Sure. The tokenized um So, first of all, I think a big shift that's happening since 2025 until right now is when you talk about crypto, it's not just an alternative asset class. It's about blockchain. It's about the underlying technology that can potentially uh revolutionize the TradFi market that is trillions of dollars. And then um similarly, if you talk about token, as you pointed out, like lots of altcoins are just losing the momentum and the price either looks like totally like this, like just dropping all the way, or looks like a roller coaster, and that's probably some market manipulation there.

And uh um and token is not just altcoins like these, but tokenized assets. So, RWA is a very important topic since 2025, uh and we are obviously very very pioneering on that since last year. We've already tokenized We've already listed some tokenized uh stocks and um commodities, uh tokenized commodities, etc. And now, uh as you point out, we offer uh not just crypto, but uh forex, stocks, um ETFs, even bonds. We started to think about that, money market fund, of course, and pre-IPO stocks. So, we listed uh SpaceX pre-IPO stocks together with uh Republic Crypto, and and that was in in in April, and we gave user a good uh retail user a

good opportunity to um to capture the gain before the the token, sorry, the the stock is even listed on um the public market. So, that's the kind of revolution that I see in the industry, and that is a very important one because finally, um crypto is not just this small group of community who really listen to your podcast a lot and and and care about my Twitter, uh but now we need to include Wall Street and TradFi and and all these big banks and and lawyers, regulators and and even politicians and and all these people are very very important and and stake very important stakeholders in the crypto industry.

>> Yeah, I totally agree. I'm I mean, I feel like that this transition we've gone from thinking about this asset class for the two to three trillion dollars of existing total market cap as well as the 150 billion dollars that is existing in D 5 in terms of TVL today to well, there's hundreds of trillions of dollars of assets that are coming on chain that are going to be tokenized and that will come on chain. And so, I think that's a very very fundamental shift that is happening. And by doing that, kind of getting back to the kind of original top of the conversation here, the type of investor coming in is different. And this type of investor is demanding a different set of token requirements than previous investors. Retail, you know, when I first got in, I was happy to buy a token

because there was a narrative that there was, you know, some bank might put it on its balance sheet or might adopt it this protocol. But now token investors are demanding revenues. They're demanding redistribution of value back to the token. They're demanding a clear transparent framework for the token versus the equity split. And they're really just thinking about this asset class from a what do I own and as a token holder, am I a first-class citizen? So, I'd just be curious to hear your view on this transition of the token token economic structure and how you anticipate this new institutional wave of RWAs and new class of investors coming in plus with the regulatory action kind of being more fair and a bit

more positive, how that's leading towards a shift in the way that investors are thinking about tokens. >> There are a lot of questions there. Let's I'll try to cover as many as possible, but definitely maybe some, but I guess the general thought here is when you again, when you're talk about tokenized assets, it's not just all coins in terms of a token. It's also tokenized stocks. And we are seeing many projects, especially those who can make pretty good revenue and profit, they may not want to list a token. Instead, they want to persuade a proper, you know, IPO kind of path and to be listed in a much bigger market for

more liquidity, for more better investment investor exposure. Or there are cases even like we get we we had a we had a platform token BGB, but it's it was shifted to Morph as a layer two public chain and and they and Morph is managing BGB, but instead we are actually looking more for an IPO path. So so there are cases like like that I think is a key shift in the current industry. And and back to your point, even if it's just a it's a all coin kind of token listing, we when we as an exchange list new tokens, we are very very careful

about what to list. I think the the past week or so, the only token we've listed is an RWA token. Something like that. So so we are seeing that kind of shift among exchanges, among the retail purchasers or traders, among project founders, and that's a very important shift that we we need to be more focused on good quality projects. And I I've been very um actively promoting this since maybe two years ago. At that time people didn't really care and I've warned on Twitter or or or so kind of very public space on be very aware of many all coins may may just be you know market manipulating or or you know meme coin is by default or

by definition a meme and and it doesn't provide fundamental value. And you should just consider as that as a speculative token. Not saying meme coin are worthless, but it's speculation by natural or by nature. And and and I don't want every single project to be like a meme coin. And it shouldn't be. Um and then uh you investor protection or tokenomics, I would say it's it's it's a very interesting time to see there are definitely some projects who are trying very hard to be, you know, transparent, um share a lot of on-chain and and

off-chain data with their community, and really build something significantly important. I know you're sharing office with um Plum Plum Network. I'm not going to endorse them by any way, but I think that's that's a good project maybe indicating that they are definitely, you know, building up something with the world-class um Wall Street kind of investors and asset managers and and really trying to find a good product market fit for the industry that rather than a random projects just, you know, sharing a narrative on I don't know AI agent, etc. Um and and that's not really creating value for the industry. And that will drive if there are more bad

players like like that who just telling story and narrative, I think this industry will die very very fast. >> Yeah. >> we're only allowed that to happen. >> Yeah, and I think that is is certainly happening. I think as I'm saying like the investors are they're demanding fundamentals, and I think they will continue to. Someone in the in the audience says that that they love Bitget and the smart wallet, and that you guys are doing a great job with the smart wallet. So, props to you. Um coming back to the potential IPO conversation or just kind of I've been thinking about this where a lot of these tokens that have an equity structure and a token structure are thinking about ways to basically combine these. And you mentioned that, you know, you guys have the BGB asset as well as

thinking about potentially doing a IPO. And I kind of have this prediction that I think some of these tokens will actually end up kind of like either like winding down their token and just issuing a tokenized equity of the equity of the company as the new token or figuring out a way to combine the equity of their foundation or their company with the existing token. And so, I, you know, I'm sure you can't speak on all the nuances of of your plans, but when you're thinking about being a company that has an existing token, but also thinking about a potential IPO path, how do you see these two worlds coming together, you know, maybe for Bitget, but also holistically for the industry founders

and companies that have equity and have a token wanting to figure out the best path to combine these. How do you think about that? >> That's a tough question, and I feel many exchanges who has had issued their own platform token, especially, you know, 4 5 years ago, are having the same kind of question. And the current market practice is to have maybe a layer two or a public chain holding that token just like X layer is managed OKX's platform token and Morpheus managing previously which belongs to us, like the BGB token.

>> Yeah. >> And then the the the exchange itself pursuing, you know, proper proper auditor auditing from big four companies and license in various jurisdictions like MiCA in in the in the Europe, VARA in Dubai, MTLs, broker dealers, DCM DCOs here in the United States and uh and have a um either go through this path, which is more compliant and more uh friendly, and or the other path path, which is probably very DeFi, very um very unchained sort of uh

um altcoin marketplace. >> Yeah. >> Um and we are seeing major, maybe top 10 exchanges start to diverge on on on these two path, and uh uh there are at least like four or five of us that's very properly seeking for licensings and and and at least I'm a big believer in that that we think uh we should work together with the government and regulators to have a proper um KYC AML to to do more user protections, to be more transparent, to share all the auditing information with both regulators and the public, especially 3 years later when we are listed. But as for you know, 3 years later, for example, when we are listed, uh

what's what's the BGB's role in that? And after all, it belongs to More Foundation right now, uh but More for is a company that we invested in and we incubated. So so all these like uh issues, I think it's um a complex >> Definitely is. >> complex question we need to navigate. But another interesting trend we are seeing right now, uh especially by the way, after right after this interview, I'm heading to Nasdaq. >> Yeah. >> And uh we are seeing Nasdaq and then what NYSE, like all these uh m- largest uh public um uh marketplace or or listing platforms for tokens, oh sorry, for stocks >> Yeah.

>> are also seeking uh something either tokenized stocks or even more crypto-native way of issuance, which is exciting. Although most of the conversations there are still at quite early stage, and uh and I think they need a lot of supports from regulators, like SEC specifically. Um, and and it's still early. Um, but but that future looks very exciting. >> Yeah. >> And what does that future look like exactly? I actually shared this um, vision, which I call 10% vision, with um, uh, Rob Goldstein, who is COO of BlackRock, like last last stream of when uh, last stream of when I was in New York. So, we were sipping coffee in his

um, nice Manhattan office, and he just asked me, like, "Gracie, what do you see as RWAs going to going to develop uh, into in 2030?" >> Yeah. >> And I said, "Okay, I have this 10% vision, and it goes like this. So, right now, all the tokenized version of specific asset classes in TradFi market uh, could be uh, money market fund, real estate, stocks um private credit, etc. And the And the tokenized version of them, if you name out uh, sorry, if you list out all the numbers versus the traditional finance way that existed for centuries, um, the penetration ratio is really really small. Now, it goes like private credit

is around uh, 0.5%, and tokenized stocks is only 0.01%. >> Yeah. >> And and in my opinion, they should go to somewhere like 10% in 5 years 4 5 years time in 2030. Um, so so, all these conversations around tokenized traditional financial assets, in my opinion, are very early, and we want to build on that in order to drive the adoption and drive my 10% vision. >> Yeah, that's that's awesome. That's so cool. Yeah, I mean, we we've been sharing the similar thesis here, which is like, okay, as I was saying, there's, you know, a couple hundred trillion dollars of assets off chain. These assets are going to come on chain in some capacity in the next 5 to 10 years.

Let's call it 10 to 20 trillion of that 200 trillion. And I've just been thinking about who is the biggest beneficiary of this? Who wins the most? Right? Like if this tokenization thesis is correct, you know, what companies, what protocols, what platforms, what primitives, what captures the most amount of that value? And I've gotten a varying you know, array of answers from different investors and builders. And so I'm going to ask you like you're saying that, you know, you guys are very focused on this. It's something that you believe in. You know, you were just with BlackRock. They obviously believe it. It's this 10% rule. So if we get that 10%, who wins? Which companies win?

Which primitives win? Which protocols win? What's your kind of broader view of the second and third order effects of this kind of tokenization wave that is happening? >> Mhm. That's a very good question. And this is the first time cuz cuz I'm asked this question like the first time that I start to think exactly the winner who's going to be there 3 4 years time. And I think there are different very important ecosystem players that's going to be needed in this trend. Of course, I as an exchange, I would say I would argue exchanges has a say. And and exchanges are a good marketplace connecting users versus the the assets as well as, you know, liquidity provider

like market makers and institutions. But but it won't be every exchange. It will only be the exchanges like us who see the vision, who are really putting a lot of effort, resource, human capital into that vision and really build very good products for our users. As I pointed out, there are exchanges who are diverging in the pathway chose. So those who want to do maybe just just crypto or just serve a smaller community who doesn't want to go through KYC or AML. I think I think they may not be the proper partner for the RW future that we are seeing

here. So, yeah, some exchanges. And then another group that I'm seeing who will be beneficiaries would be stablecoin issuers and stablecoin providers. That's why, you know, 2 days ago when um Visa etc. launched um the open USD network, that drove Circle's stocks obviously down a lot. But either way, these players um who are uh the stablecoin issuers will be very important. Uh because what we are doing right now is also enabling all of our users to use stablecoin USDT, USDC, and and USD gold, and etc. in order use use stablecoins to trade all the universal asset classes. And that is

a very important trend that we are seeing. So, the second group I would argue uh many of the stablecoin issuers who continue to have a strong market share in terms of payment as well as trading. Um the other group might be projects who are building the protocols projects, certain public chains like I feel Solana, and maybe Ethereum, especially Solana. I'm I'm I'm I'm more pro um RWAs, and and they also work closely with regulators and uh big banks and uh TradFi players on those adoption.

>> Yeah. >> Um so, some protocols like that should be also very important. Who else are we missing? Oh, I think uh the most important one is actually community and retail users. >> Right. >> Yeah, which although, you know, we were just talking about projects and and different players, but these people uh when they have access to all the universally valuable assets >> Yep. >> through a UEX like us, they get to choose, and they can implement their best portfolio management strategy, and you know, margin using using for example right now we allow our users to use RNVDA, which is realities Nvidia token tokenized stocks to use

that as a margin to trade perpetuals or sorry to trade to trade other stocks or tokens like like Bitcoin. So that's that's increasing the market efficiency so capital efficiency for our user and that automatically benefit our user and and and traders and community because now they have choices and and they they are they have access to this more longer timing sort of 24/7 market if not a 24/5 market >> Yep.

>> and and jurisdiction wise they also have more freedom. We are allowing dozens of countries users to access tokenized US stocks which may not be accessible in in their own traditional financial way. Yes, so these are all important players. >> Yep. And I think off the top of that on the exchange side I think you know, obviously perps have caught a lot of traction in terms of their ability to list real-world assets very fast. Like like a a lot of perps exchanges on the decentralized side hyperliquid lighter variational etc. Fast lighting the listing these assets and then same on the centralized side you guys couple others pre-IPO perps traditional commodities stocks

indices etc. And so that's really happening and so I really wanted to ask you this because I saw a CZ doing an interview with the Galaxy folks and he was asked about hyperliquid and he was asked about what he thinks about hyperliquid and his answer was more around like they have an advantage because they have no KYC and they I I hope they have good lawyers and I wouldn't want to be doing what they're doing given that I've been to prison and I don't want to go back. And so I'm just going to ask you, Gracie, what is your opinion on Hyperliquid?

>> Yeah, I have a lot of fire bags when I whenever I talk about Hyperliquid, no matter positively or negatively. So I made a decision not to comment on specifically Hyperliquid. Uh but in general, DEX and CEX, or what we call UEX, uh is still going to be a sort of um bipolar bipolar kind of uh narrative and and roles that that the community will argue. You know, some people just love DEX, that they they they love not doing KYC. And there are probably reasons for certain jurisdictions that like like we don't serve the US clients as as a CEX.

So so um so US US citizens cannot go through KYC with me, at least not now. Uh after I launch our US website and and specific US app, uh hopefully end of this year. And actually, that's one of the one of the reasons I came to New York a lot like this year to do to do the US expansion. But at least now we don't serve US clients. So so so some of them may go to, you know, other platforms like like DEX. Um and and that's that's a pathway chose. And and we do uh want to do, like I said earlier, proper KYC and AML and and avoid um any deal deal J SEC CFTC kind of big lawsuit that I don't want to deal with

them. So so I want to be very compliant. >> Yeah, but I I think like perpetual futures in general as a instrument are coming to the US. Like uh they're we're we're getting the onshoring of the the CFTC chairman, Michael Saylor, is bullish on it. He was on CNBC talking about it. The the there is a race to the onshoring of perps, which I think is super great for everybody. Uh they've been, you know, kind of banned for however long now. Um and so I think that trend is is is certainly happening. And I actually have a question here from somebody in the audience who's asking like, if you see perps as cannibalistic to the tokenization of RWAs, right? So, in the in the tokenization format, right? You issue uh these off-chain assets, then

you put a a denomination of it in various formats on chain in more of like a spot format, so like there's one-to-one ownership. Again, varying issuers and providers have different strategies. Perps, you don't even need the asset. You just need an oracle, right? You literally just need an oracle for this price, and you you know, everybody can trade. Do you see these two things as complementary or kind of uh conflicting each other? >> I see them as com- complementary, uh because perp versus spot has have always exist in crypto exchanges since I don't know, like 10 years ago.

>> Yes. Yes. >> Uh and people trade both uh in different scenarios. And and uh and there are cases like, for example, myself, I don't have time to do a do day trading, uh but I have uh there are tokens or or stocks that I'm very bullish on that I want to hold in the long run. In the in that case, I will only trade stock spot rather than um futures because futures you have funding fee, you have uh you have the the the risk of being liquidated, and uh of course there's leverage and and higher >> return, higher risk.

>> Yeah, of course. >> Um but in general, as an exchange, we are offering spot and perpetuals. It's always like this, and perpetuals are uh synthetic oracle-kind of feeded um data that that power like the the whole market. Um and and we see we're seeing the same in in stocks offering, at least in the offshore exchanges setting. Um so, in the long run, I don't see perpetuals um being uh so-called one-on-one, like spot or like tokenized the stocks. But, uh, um, in the specific US market, this this may be an important topic that that's continually evolving because, uh,

maybe before Kashi or before, uh, CME started to list some some perpetuals of or futures of in in individual stock, uh, like very recently, like within the weeks, right? There weren't that many people in the US who trade perpetual stocks right? >> Uh, and that's, uh, very new thing, especially in the US market, but it's never a new thing in the offshore >> market, yeah. We've been doing this for 10 years. >> Yes, we have.

>> And also, I mean, if we're being honest, everybody in the US just puts a VPN on anyways and trades on these, you know, so >> But like, they can't trade on us because we still need that KYC. >> KYC and things, right? But that's where they kind of like Just kind of, uh, thinking more broadly as we come to a close here. I know you're tight on time, you're going to the Nasdaq here. When you're, you know, when you first started Bitget, we were obviously a much, you know, niche, small industry. I think it was 2015? >> 20, no, no, I started in 2022, but Bitget Bitget was started in 20, uh, 18. >> 18, okay. So, I I joined 2017, you know, we were just Bitcoin's at a thousand, Ethereum was at like sub a hundred, Litecoin was at a dollar. And it was

like, you know, it was just very small, very like libertarian, very like anti-government, anti-Wall Street. Fast forward to now, the industry's in a bit of an identity crisis because it feels like we, one, have given up a lot of our identity to TradFi in terms of this kind of convergence that's happened. And then, two, this this kind of token equity dynamic where like, we're all kind of realizing that we don't really have that many high-quality assets in crypto. And so, we need to really reshape what a high-quality asset means and make these assets investable. And then, also, bring a lot of these kind of traditional assets on chain. Obviously, we're 8 months into a bear market and there's kind of this large sentiment gap between the institutional deliberations of this technology and the retail or the average investor. And so,

given that context and given the vision of of what you're seeing for Bitget as well as for this industry, what has changed about your thesis about digital assets over the last year or two? What is your updated mental model for where this industry is going? What the most successful exports of this industry are and kind of maybe what this industry may look like in a couple years. >> Uh the the industry may look like couple of years. I'll I'll answer the answer the last question first cuz we just talked about 2030. Uh my 10% vision, I think that's a good representative of what the industry may look like in the upcoming few years. So, RWA, stablecoin, payment, real product market fit, and emerge of crypto and tradfi are going to be the trends as

well as AI. Um and in terms of identity crisis, that's an interesting word and you are definitely not the first person who talk about identity crisis in this in this industry with me within this year. And there has been dozens of conversations like that. Yeah, but what what I feel is uh this is just what what things is going to be. No matter you like it or not, it's going to be like that. It's just like there are people who have identity crisis in the AI era as well. Like I'm a human being, I'm carbon ordinate, I'm not a silicon silicon kind of human being. I'm I'm a carbon uh human being. And uh and when this this all all this like silicon or AI computer can do so many things much

faster, much better than I do, what's the value of me? And that's another sort of identity crisis. >> Definitely. >> But I I feel these these kind of conversations share the same moral, which is when this industry or when the world, is evolving so fast. You can't stop these kind of trends. >> Yeah. >> You can't stop the RWA trend. You can't stop the AI trend. You have to follow that trend, and hopefully you can ride the the wave and be a important player out there and and do something magnificent. So, that's how I deal with my identity crisis. And and and begin as a as a as a company, we also pay attention to these trends very closely

>> Yeah. >> and think about our position, um how to serve our users, and and run this marathon together in the long run, because it's not a sprint. Running a change is not a sprint. And running a project in the in the industry is also not a sprint. You have to have that long-term mindset and mentality in order to build something great. And if you do, I think right now is the best time, >> Yep. >> best place in New York, um that you can really achieve something very magnificent. And that could be as big as, I don't know, I sometimes I feel we are in the um 20th century sort of JP Morgan starting up

>> Yeah. >> uh era when rather lots of revolution are happening in the traditional financial industry. And this wave of revolution is a lot about tokenization. >> Yeah. >> And we have great position and great opportunities to be on this wave and do something. And let's do something together. >> go. There we go. Let's get this IPO done. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Gracie Chen from the Tokenization Tower. Gracie, thanks to have you. Awesome conversation.