In the deep water of trading, the focus of competition is no longer on liquidity or product parameters, but on how to retain users.

Over the past year, as cryptocurrency prices have stabilized and the derivatives market has gradually matured, the incentive systems of major exchanges have begun to undergo a qualitative change—from short-term promotions to systematic incentives.

In October 2025, Gate officially launched its contract points system, which is a concentrated embodiment of this transformation. It attempts to establish a new balance between trading rebates, tiered systems, and asset incentives by quantifying and pointifying user behavior, evolving the incentive logic from "rewarding trading volume" to "rewarding ecological participation."

The starting point of traditional trading incentives is often a single-dimensional competition—transaction fee discounts, rebate ratios, or competition prizes. Although these methods are direct, they have obvious short-cycle characteristics: once the activity ends, users leave, and platform revenue is difficult to sustain.

Gate's contract points system attempts to reconstruct the incentive structure in a more "ecological" way. It does not center on a single trading action but introduces a sustainable quantifiable points model that unifies trading, holding, and inviting behaviors within the same value framework.

The system mainly consists of three parts:

Trading Points: Starting with a trading volume of 400 USDT, users can earn 1 point, with a maximum of 16 points corresponding to 13 million USDT. Points calculation includes both buying and selling, which suppresses one-sided volume manipulation and balances activity and fairness.

Balance Points: Based on daily asset snapshots, USDT and BTC balances accumulate 1–4 points per day, while funds in wealth management accounts are not counted. This directly links platform retention and user stickiness, rather than simply relying on locked positions or wealth management products.

Invitation Points: Inviting 1–3 new users can earn 1–3 points, but the invited users must meet the ≥2 points activity standard to be counted. This ensures the quality of new user acquisition while extending the lifecycle of incentives.

Additionally, points have a validity period of 15 days and adopt a "first in, first out" consumption rule. This means that points are "perishable," and users need to remain active to gain long-term benefits, thus naturally forming a positive cycle.

This logic is less of a promotion and more of an attempt at "behavior monetization": every genuine action by users is systematically recorded in a periodic asset ledger.

The points system is often designed in a way that it can easily become "pseudo-assets"—that is, circulating only within the platform and lacking real value anchors. After three months of the system's launch, Gate assigned clear market returns to the points through three rounds of airdrop activities, thus completing the leap from "equity points" to "value carriers."

According to official disclosed data, the revenue performance of the three rounds of activities is as follows:

| Period | Project Name | Single Point Revenue | Single Account Revenue (USDT) | |--------|--------------|----------------------|-------------------------------| | 1st | Dogecoin (DOGE) | 230U | 22U | | 2nd | PENGU (Pengu) | 220U | |

From the revenue structure, the stable single point revenue (approximately 2 USDT) provides a reference value anchor for the system, while the fluctuations in single account revenue between different periods reflect the platform's dynamic adjustment capabilities at different stages—flexibly matching incentive intensity based on market heat and activity goals.

If we calculate based on earning 1 point for a minimum trading volume of 400 USDT, even estimating a single point revenue of 2 USDT, the short-term return rate is still around 0.5%. For frequent traders or highly active users, this ratio is not low, and its low threshold and repeatability further amplify the overall attractiveness. More importantly, the "economic" attribute of points makes them a bridge connecting user behavior and token revenue. In the DOGE and PENGU airdrops, users directly acquire mainstream and emerging assets through points, while the platform achieves increased activity and social diffusion, and project parties complete precise exposure. Thus, a three-party incentive closed loop is established.

In the contract points system, the relationship between users and the platform is no longer limited to "trade matching" but is restructured into a behavioral value contract. The core of this change lies in the fact that user behavior data is viewed for the first time as "valued assets." The system transforms trading frequency, fund retention, and social dissemination into concrete economic quantities in the form of points, thus forming a prototype of "behavioral financialization."

This mechanism brings three structural changes: The low-threshold design and multi-dimensional point sources allow users of different sizes to receive positive feedback, avoiding the traditional rebate system's issue of "only rewarding large accounts." The validity period and airdrop cycles form a closed loop, and the points decay mechanism encourages users to remain active continuously, rather than participating in short-term volume spikes. The points system can be deeply bound to project activities, becoming a customizable traffic and incentive interface. This model provides a new bridge for the platform to introduce external partners and brings more precise user samples for project traffic.

Structurally, this design resembles a multi-dimensional incentive protocol layer, making exchange incentives no longer reliant on single-point activities but continuously operating based on system logic.

In the context of a maturing cryptocurrency derivatives market with limited incremental growth, Gate's points-based attempt may have certain "sample significance." It demonstrates a potential evolutionary direction for exchange incentives: moving from short-term promotions to institutionalized incentives.

Rebates and competition activities are essentially "external blood transfusion-style growth," relying on high costs for maintenance. The points system internalizes and periodicizes incentives, incorporating them into the operational model, achieving a dynamic balance between costs and revenues. The points mechanism allows user behavior to be recorded and measured for the first time as "digital assets." This not only enhances the platform's refined operational capabilities but also provides a foundational data structure for potential future cross-platform incentive collaborations (such as a joint points system among multiple exchanges).

In the long run, points-based incentives may not only be an innovative tool for exchanges but could also become a universal incentive framework for the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. In the DeFi field, points can be used to measure liquidity contributions; in the NFT ecosystem, they can reflect the participation of creators or collectors; in the SocialFi system, points can become quantifiable proof of social influence.

In other words, as user behavior gradually becomes the most important production factor, the points system will become the infrastructure for behavioral capitalization. And exchanges are the first experimental field in this evolutionary process. What Gate's contract points system validates is not only the feasibility of the incentive model but also a change in industry logic: cryptocurrency platforms are transforming from "matchmakers" to "value distributors," moving from short-term growth to long-term structure, and from promotional logic to an economic system.

Looking back at the data from the three rounds of airdrop activities, Gate's contract points system shows strong attractiveness in both revenue feedback and participation enthusiasm. But what is more noteworthy is the shift in thinking it represents—during this new competitive cycle, the advantages of trading platforms will no longer be just products and liquidity, but how to define, measure, and return the real value to users. Points-based incentives may just be the beginning of this answer.

Related: What would happen if quantum computers have already cracked Bitcoin (BTC)?

Original article: From Rebates to Contract Points: The Next Stop in Crypto Trading Incentive Mechanisms

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