The 10% Holders After the Tide Recedes
If you attended Token2049 in Singapore, it would be hard not to notice the prominent Bitget logo at the check-in counter and the "Messi Shooting" display at the Bitget booth.
"How did Bitget come about?" "Who is behind Bitget?" "What is the relationship between Bitget and Foresight?" These are the kinds of questions that can be heard from time to time in Singapore, as people are curious about this trading platform that was born in the bear market of 2018 and rose strongly in the bear market of 2023.
In September of this year, Bitget celebrated its fifth anniversary. With a bit of curiosity, we had conversations with several current and former Bitget employees, as well as related investors, attempting to partially reconstruct the story behind Bitget's five-year journey.
A Messi-Style Victory
When we talk about Messi, what comes to mind?
Seven Ballon d'Or awards? Leading Argentina to win the World Cup?
Sorry, but I can't help but associate Messi with Bitget at the moment, with an image in my mind of "Messi holding a phone displaying the Bitget App."
In October 2022, Bitget signed a contract with Messi for over 100 million RMB. On one hand, Messi has global influence and can help Bitget establish its brand overseas. On the other hand, Bitget's top management believed that Bitget and Messi have too many similarities, or rather, Bitget's success today is a Messi-style victory.
Messi, who grew up eating potatoes and carrots, suffered from malnutrition from a young age and was diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency dwarfism at the age of 11. On the day he received the diagnosis, he walked the cold streets with his father, even though he knew there was no money at home to treat him, he remained unusually calm.
Although later with the help of Barcelona Club, he received growth hormone injections for 3 years, his height of 1.69 meters still made him look like an "easily bullied child" on the field. However, as an adult, Messi integrated weakness and strength, standing out from the crowd.
When asked by a reporter, "Who are you most grateful to?"
Messi said, "It's those who used to look down on me. If it weren't for the ridicule and contempt, I would have always considered myself a genius. Argentina has never lacked geniuses, but in the end, there are very few who truly become usable talents."
Bitget's beginning seems to be similar. Established in May 2018, it was unknown. At that time, people were talking about Fcoin, which later became FTX, and no one noticed Bitget quietly developing in the corner.
Without celebrity endorsements, without creating a founder persona, without massive funding for promotion, Bitget could only work from the bottom up in its early days, "messaging some community KOLs one by one, usually receiving neglect and ridicule," as expressed by an early Bitget employee who joined from another exchange and was questioned by others, "Why go to a 'small exchange'?"
As Messi said, being underestimated is the destiny of growth.
Messi is almost the player who runs the least on the field. For many years, footage of Messi strolling on the field has often been made into funny compilations. His seemingly gentle demeanor conceals his killer instinct.
In a certain world competition, Messi ran only 5 miles in 90 minutes, with 83% of the time spent strolling and only 1% of the time used for acceleration, yet he scored a goal and provided an assist.
This is Messi's strength and wisdom, not making meaningless runs for the process, but being responsible for the results, striking with precision.
Well-known blogger "Lonely Brain" summarized Messi's playing style on the football field, abstracting "football philosophy":
Step 1: Scan the entire field and draw a value map;
Step 2: Wait in the value area;
Step 3: "Infiltrate" the micro gaps of space and time;
Step 4: Pursue attack maximization with diversity;
Step 5: Achieve scoring.
Messi's football philosophy on the field is also the survival philosophy of individuals and businesses, and Bitget is a firm implementer of Messi's philosophy.
- Focus limited resources on high-value areas;
- No matter how big the market battle is, always find the most important point of effort, which is often only one;
- Often the best point of effort and specific actions are based on certain basic elements, and the key is to discover the crucial point, rather than a whole bunch of complex methodologies.
In 2019, Bitget made a decision to cut off spot trading business, retaining only futures business, transforming into a platform focused on contract trading. This is how Bitget focused limited resources on high-value areas. So, how to make an effort?
Bitget keenly discovered that in the futures market, investors not only need a trading platform, but also need trading strategies. Bitget chose to innovate at the product level, launching USDT linear contracts in July 2019, the first in the world, and then pioneering one-click copy trading and hybrid contracts.
Like Messi, Bitget did not charge recklessly on the crypto field, but held onto high-value areas, innovating in the most important places, all in service of the results.
KOLs and Overseas Markets
When we consulted industry insiders out of curiosity about "How did Bitget rise, what did it do right?" Most respondents would tell us two pieces of information, "Bitget operates a huge KOL network, with one KOL possibly bringing over $300 million in trading volume to BG," and "Bitget's early rise relied on seizing part of the core Asian markets."
Today, we find that Bitget is expanding its KOL network from within the industry to outside the industry, attracting a large number of non-crypto industry KOLs to join, including the host of the Taiwanese YouTube channel "Shy Grass Diary," who has millions of subscribers.
In 2021, the host invested millions in Bitcoin mining, initially reaping rewards, and then doubling down. However, the market took a sharp turn, and the mining operation began to lose money. After persisting for two years, the host received support from Bitget during the lowest point in life and established the "Grass Coin Champion" incubation center teaching platform to cultivate newcomers interested in cryptocurrency.
In September 2023, the host received the "Bitget Hero Award" at the Bitget fifth anniversary gala.
On stage, the host emotionally said, "It's hard to imagine that a year ago, I, who fell hard in mining, could stand up again."
At a blockchain event overseas, we met a practitioner in the crypto industry, KIM, who was a supplier for Bitget. He recalled a past cooperation with Bitget. Due to accounting issues, he was underpaid by $500,000. Later, Bitget found the problem and proactively reached out to him, settling the $500,000, which deeply moved him and led him to recommend Bitget to more cooperative communities.
However, beneath the glamorous data, such a model may also have hidden undercurrents.
Industry insider King pointed out incisively, KOLs can bring users, but they can also take them away, testing whether Bitget can truly retain users.
Behind KOL cooperation often lies the game of human nature and interests, just like live streaming sales on short video platforms. The video platform supports the host, but may also suppress them when they are unruly. It is difficult for the platform to truly restrain the host from seeking elsewhere or setting up independently.
Therefore, it can be foreseen that conflicts between Bitget and some KOLs will also be commonplace in the future.
Founders and Wolf Culture
As we tried to explore Bitget's management team and corporate culture from the outside in, we encountered an information barrier—Bitget's founder is exceptionally mysterious, having retired behind the scenes and almost never speaking publicly.
So, we turned the microphone to current/former Bitget employees and industry veterans. Some avoided the topic, some praised it, some current employees said they would try to avoid direct communication with the big boss in their work, and some former employees said the Bitget founder is a strong "capitalist," result-oriented in everything…
The fragmented information gradually pieced together to reveal the founder's style of doing things—"decisive and swift."
This style also shaped Bitget's corporate culture, a company full of wolf-like traits.
"Wolf culture" is not a derogatory term, nor is it the public's perception of 996/007. Here, I prefer to use Ren Zhengfei's explanation of "wolf culture":
First, it is a keen sense of smell. In extremely harsh living environments, wolves have evolved a kind of "prophetic" perception and design consciousness;
Second, it is an indomitable spirit of attack, the heroism of an organization;
Third, it is the "wolf pack spirit," facing setbacks with perseverance.
Wolf culture is often based on utilitarian principles and pragmatism, with results always taking precedence.
"Those who achieve results will receive full authorization and rewards; those without short-term results must strive for opportunities with their attitude; those without results or attitude will be decisively eliminated," summarized a Bitget employee.
The individual strongly agrees with this "results-oriented" approach, allowing them to focus on the work itself and reap the rewards of achieving results, rather than wasting energy on upward management, internal public relations, and interpersonal relationships, without internal intrigue or mutual reporting.
Wolf culture does not equal internal competition, it demands results, not meaningless internal consumption. They like this simple and direct style of work.
Industry investor Candy believes that Bitget is internally united, while the biggest problem with another derivatives-based trading platform in the industry is internal strife and consumption within the management team.
Talent
"Huawei does not hoard dollars, but hoards talent," this phrase also applies to Bitget.
Why do they join Bitget?
A simple answer that aligns with human nature is, "They simply give too much."
It is understood that there is no upper limit to the commission of Bitget BD and other employees, and under the historical process of rapid development and personal efforts, overseas employees have received bonuses of $200,000 in a month.
"I'm not afraid of working hard, what I'm afraid of is repetitive and meaningless work, without a sense of achievement, and without making money," said Yi, who joined Bitget today, feeling that the direct payment style of Bitget, without making empty promises, respects the fruits of their labor.
Yi told us that despite the bear market in the crypto market in 2023, Bitget still distributed mid-year bonuses to everyone.
In the development of Bitget, some key talents have played important roles, helping Bitget build an ecosystem in investment, media, and incubation; helping Bitget expand its presence in overseas markets…
In a Bitget culture manual displayed by Bitget employees, there is a page specifically discussing "talent strategy": respect, empowerment; appointing people based on their abilities; personnel iteration; embracing diversity.
Currently, Bitget has over 1500 employees worldwide and is still expanding and recruiting new talents this year.
Another truth about Bitget is that Bitget does not deliberately cultivate talent, but selects it. Excellent talent is chosen, not cultivated.
Advancing the Ecosystem
In addition to the rise in trading volume, what is clearly perceived today is the entire ecosystem linkage of Bitget, with greatly enhanced brand momentum, thanks to the support of its investment and media brand Foresight.
According to the Bitget fifth anniversary open letter, Foresight Ventures has invested in 77 projects, including Space and Time, WalletConnect, Sei Network, Gitcoin, Shardeum, and other well-known enterprises, with a total investment amount exceeding $60 million; Foresight X has incubated 12 early-stage projects, covering AI + Web3, Bitcoin ecosystem, LSDFi, and other tracks.
On August 10th, Web3 multi-chain wallet BitKeep was officially renamed Bitget Wallet, still existing as an independent app and not integrated into the trading platform.
Exchange, investment, media, incubation, wallet… Bitget's ecosystem covers five major areas. Is there still one missing?
Perhaps you have already thought of it—public chain. According to the information we obtained at the Bitget event in Singapore, Bitget is also continuously supporting some emerging Layer2 networks, exploring more efficient and secure solutions.
With this, Bitget's ecosystem advances to the next level, bringing together six major sectors.
Conclusion
On September 11th, Gracy Chen, Managing Director of Bitget, released an open letter titled "Written on Bitget's Fifth Anniversary—In every era, there must be someone to look up at the stars," with two memorable sentences:
Bitget's birth stems from a unique belief—"to be the 10% holder after the tide recedes."
Unlike those exchanges that rise quickly and then disappear quickly, we are more like a marathon runner.
In the crypto industry, success may not be so complicated. Keep running, don't make mistakes, because your opponents will always make mistakes or drop out voluntarily. Marathon runners do not care about short-term gains and losses; all the running is only for the moment of reaching the finish line.
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