Latest / The Starting Block / Crypto exchanges will take over Wall Street - ft. Bitget’s Gracy Chen

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Crypto exchanges will take over Wall Street - ft. Bitget’s Gracy Chen · The Starting Block

0:07
Good morning, good afternoon,
0:09
wherever you are. Welcome back to
0:10
The Starting Block.
0:11
It's Tuesday, and we are gonna be
0:13
starting off the show with a little
0:14
bit of breaking news that came out
0:15
in the last 10 minutes before we
0:17
were prepping.
0:18
Jack Mallers, who you will know if
0:20
you're a big Bitcoiner in the
0:22
space, has just announced that
0:24
he's stepping down as CEO of
0:26
21.
0:27
Of course, 21 was
0:29
tipped to be a big rival
0:31
to Michael Saylor in strategy last
0:33
year with big
0:35
backers in tether and a number.
0:37
Of other big companies putting
0:39
down tens of thousands of
0:41
Bitcoin to establish this new
0:43
Bitcoin treasury company.
0:44
Jack Mallers just announcing in the
0:45
last 10 minutes that he is stepping
0:47
down as CEO.
0:48
We're actually going to play the
0:49
snippet of his video
0:51
that he just put out so you hear
0:53
it from him first right
0:55
here on the starting block.
0:58
Hey, everyone.
0:59
I have decided to step down
1:01
as the CEO of 21
1:03
Capital.
1:04
I wanted to tell you that myself,
1:07
in my own words, because you
1:09
deserve to hear it from me directly.
1:12
When I helped start 21, I thought we
1:14
had an opportunity to build
1:15
something very specific.
1:17
Not only a company
1:19
built on Bitcoin, not
1:21
only a a company built
1:23
with Bitcoin on its balance sheet.
1:25
But also a company with Bitcoin
1:26
businesses producing cashflow
1:28
built alongside of it.
1:30
That was the vision that I believed
1:32
in.
1:33
That is still the vision that
1:35
I believe in.
1:37
However, over time, it became
1:39
clear that the board and I
1:41
did not agree on the
1:43
path toward building for
1:45
that vision.
1:46
Not in bad faith, not because
1:48
anyone was wrong.
1:50
The people involved in 21 are
1:52
immensely talented and committed
1:54
to what they believe.
1:57
But sometimes people can
1:59
look at the same opportunity and
2:01
arrive at different conclusions as
2:03
to how to build it.
2:04
And that's okay.
2:06
But something had to change.
2:08
And ultimately I made the decision
2:10
to step down as the CEO and
2:12
exit myself from the business.
2:14
Now, I do not say that lightly.
2:17
People believed in 21.
2:19
People invested in 21.
2:22
People believed in me specifically
2:24
as its CEO.
2:26
I understand that
2:28
responsibility.
2:30
I feel the weight of
2:32
that responsibility, I know
2:34
some people will be disappointed
2:36
by this outcome.
2:37
This was certainly not the vision
2:38
that I had when
2:40
I started the business as to how
2:42
this story would end.
2:45
Now, with all of that being said,
2:47
and as hard as walking away from 21
2:49
has been, I know
2:51
that it is both the honest and
2:53
the right thing to do.
2:55
It's the right for 21 the company,
2:57
it's the thing for its shareholders,
2:59
it's right thing for Bitcoiners, and
3:01
it's a right thing from me.
3:03
This experience in making this
3:05
decision has brought me back to
3:07
questions that matter the most.
3:09
Like, why has Bitcoin been my
3:11
life's mission for the last 14
3:12
years? What do I want
3:14
to build?
3:15
Who am I building for?
3:18
And maybe the simplest but most
3:20
important thing that I learned
3:21
through all of this is that I'm
3:23
at my best and my heart is
3:25
most full and I'm able to contribute
3:27
to the Bitcoin story most
3:29
fully when I pour my energy
3:31
and my blood, my sweat, my tears
3:33
into building tools for Bitcoin and
3:35
Bitcoiners, period.
3:36
That simple.
3:38
I wanna be building for the person
3:39
stacking sats, for the
3:41
small to medium sized business that
3:43
start in their own Bitcoin treasury.
3:44
For the hodler, for those of you at
3:46
conferences that run up to me and
3:48
say, Jack, it was a podcast you
3:49
recorded or it was strike that
3:51
finally got myself or my family
3:53
or my friends to understand Bitcoin,
3:55
to get off zero.
3:56
The person that's worked their whole
3:57
life to accumulate savings and
4:00
now wants those savings to be
4:01
protected in Bitcoin.
4:03
Those are the people that I want to
4:04
spend my life building for.
4:06
And to me, that's what strike is.
4:09
Bitcoin has a weird way of
4:11
forcing clarity on you.
4:13
It tests what you really believe.
4:15
It challenges who you really are,
4:17
where you may be weak.
4:18
And it makes you confront what
4:20
actually matters, especially
4:22
when the answer can no longer be
4:24
theoretical.
4:25
And this experience has done that
4:27
for me.
4:28
I have never believed in Bitcoin
4:30
more than I do today.
4:31
I have been never been more
4:33
energized to build for Bitcoiners
4:34
more than am right now.
4:37
I know the type of leader that I am
4:39
and that I want to be.
4:40
I know that type of business that
4:42
Stripe is and that I want it
4:44
to build, and I know the type a
4:46
world that I think is worth building
4:47
for.
4:48
My life's work remains Bitcoin.
4:50
The home in where I do that work
4:52
remains Stripe.
4:54
I know what I'm building, and I who
4:56
I'm going to building it for.
4:57
And I know why it matters.
5:00
So thank you for your support this
5:02
far.
5:03
This story is far from over,
5:05
in fact, in many ways.
5:06
It's just getting started.
5:09
So with that, I wish 21 and
5:11
the team nothing but the best and
5:13
I am back to work working
5:15
on Bitcoin for Bitcoiners
5:17
at Strike.
5:18
Take care.
5:26
Welcome back to the starting block.
5:27
As you just saw there, Jack Mallers
5:29
announcing that he has stepped down
5:31
as CEO of
5:32
21. 21 established last
5:34
year as one of the big
5:36
rival Bitcoin
5:39
treasury companies that was
5:40
looking to go up
5:43
against Michael Saylor and
5:45
strategy. Very, very interesting
5:46
news coming out there.
5:47
The block's news team will be
5:49
working on this throughout the
5:50
afternoon. I've also messaged Jack
5:51
Maller's team. Hopefully we can get
5:53
him on the show sometime this week
5:54
to talk a little bit more.
5:56
About this announcement, but a very,
5:58
very interesting one.
5:58
And to be honest, not something I
6:00
had on my bingo card for 2026,
6:02
Jack Mallers stepping down as CEO
6:04
of 21.
6:05
And it was quite interesting.
6:06
We caught up with him at BTC Prague
6:08
a couple of weeks ago.
6:10
And one of the topics which
6:11
I was kind of asked to not go into
6:14
too much depth was 21.
6:16
And now about a month later, he's
6:18
announced that he's stepping down.
6:19
So. Hopefully we can get some more
6:21
from Jack Mullis in the next few
6:23
weeks. We do have Gracie Chen
6:24
back of house in
6:26
studio with us already for the hot
6:28
seat interview which is coming up
6:29
very shortly.
6:30
But before we bring Gracie onto the
6:32
show, I'm gonna jump into the block
6:34
briefing and give you a rundown of
6:36
the top news headlines over
6:38
the past 24 hours.
6:39
First of all, big movement in
6:41
Washington. President Trump has
6:43
agreed to ethics language for the
6:44
crypto market structure bill, a
6:46
breakthrough that could finally
6:47
clear the path for legislation to
6:49
become law. An industry source told
6:51
the block Monday evening that a
6:53
deal was struck after months of
6:55
negotiations, saying we're now
6:57
hearing Trump has agreed to an
6:58
ethics provision.
6:59
The measure was hashed out following
7:00
a July 16 meeting with
7:02
senators Bernie Moreno and
7:04
Cynthia Loomis and White House
7:06
crypto advisor Patrick Witt.
7:08
Democrats reportedly haven't seen
7:09
the text yet, so watch the space
7:11
as it heads towards a Senate vote.
7:14
Then Bitcoin miners are going all in
7:16
on AI. Shares of Hut8 and
7:18
IRN. Both jumped double digits
7:20
yesterday after announcing fresh
7:22
infrastructure deals with billions
7:23
of dollars.
7:25
HUT8 signed a second 15 year
7:27
$9.8 billion lease
7:29
at its Beacon Point campus in Texas,
7:31
fully commercializing the one
7:32
gigawatt site and doubling its
7:35
tenant capacity to 704 megawatts.
7:38
Across its portfolio, HUT 8 now
7:40
holds contracts with $26.6
7:42
billion with expected annual
7:44
income north of 1.7
7:46
billion.
7:47
Meanwhile, IRN inked $2.8
7:50
billion in new contracts.
7:51
It's the clearest sign yet that
7:53
miners are pivoting from crypto
7:54
toward data center leasing,
7:56
or at least balancing Bitcoin
7:58
mining with AI
8:00
compute.
8:02
Sam Altman's eyeball
8:04
scanning crypto project could become
8:05
a Wall Street product.
8:08
Grayscale filed with the SEC
8:09
Monday for a WorldCoin ETF,
8:12
a fund that would hold WLD,
8:14
the native token of the world
8:15
network.
8:16
If approved, it would be the first
8:17
world coin ETF in the U.S.
8:20
Trading on NASDAQ with BNY Mellon
8:22
as transfer agent and BitGo
8:24
as custodian.
8:26
WLD currently carries a $1.3
8:28
billion market cap, making it
8:30
the 57th largest crypto
8:32
world coin, which rebranded
8:34
as world, uses biometric eye scans
8:36
to verify identity.
8:38
It's the latest altcoin knocking
8:40
on the ETF door.
8:42
Prediction markets just hit a wall
8:43
in Washington State.
8:45
A King County judge granted a
8:47
preliminary injunction Monday,
8:49
temporarily blocking Kalshi from
8:50
offering sports related events
8:52
contracts, ruling the platform
8:54
runs illegal gambling under
8:55
state law.
8:56
The judge wrote that Kalshiy offers
8:58
illegal gambling activities to
8:59
Washington consumers and that
9:01
consumer protection outweighs any
9:03
harm to the company.
9:04
The court will review more filings
9:06
by the 3rd of August and the
9:07
injunction won't take effect until
9:09
at least August 5th.
9:11
It's another legal headache for
9:12
Kalshi, as states push
9:14
back on its rapid sports betting
9:16
expansion.
9:17
The SEC is cracking down on an
9:19
alleged crypto mining scam.
9:21
The agency filed partially settled
9:23
charges yesterday against Florida
9:25
resident Zan Shake and his
9:26
company Mining Automatic, accusing
9:28
them of raising roughly $22
9:30
million from more than
9:32
380 investors.
9:35
Prosecutors say that between June,
9:37
2023 and May, 2025, the
9:38
pay promise guaranteed monthly
9:40
returns.
9:41
From a mining operation that
9:42
couldn't deliver.
9:43
The kicker here, the SEC says only
9:45
about 13% of investor funds actually
9:47
went toward mining.
9:48
The rest, they allege, went to
9:50
marketing to recruit new investors
9:52
and shakes personal expenses.
9:54
Our final story of the day,
9:56
CoinShares is making a major push
9:57
into European institutional money.
10:00
The crypto asset manager unveiled a
10:01
new platform Tuesday targeting the
10:03
region's $30 trillion
10:06
UCITS ecosystem.
10:07
The fund framework that pension
10:09
funds, insurers, and private banks
10:10
are actually allowed to buy.
10:12
CoinShares says the old product
10:13
wrappers locked those investors out
10:15
and the UCITS
10:17
structure removes that barrier.
10:19
Its first fund, the CoinShaes
10:20
Bitcoin Mining UCITs
10:22
ETF started trading
10:24
on Deutsche Börse's
10:26
Extra on Tuesday.
10:28
It's a bet that the next wave of
10:30
crypto adoption comes not from
10:31
retail. But from Europe's
10:33
deepest institutional pools.
10:35
Remember, if you're looking to find
10:36
more of the latest news, you can go
10:37
to the Blocks website.
10:38
That's theblock.co to read
10:41
more of these top stories from
10:43
our fantastic editorial team.
10:45
We're gonna take a short break and
10:46
then we'll be back live on air with
10:48
Gracie Chen from BitGet.
10:50
Don't go away.
11:17
Welcome back to The Block, the
11:18
shortest break in The Block history.
11:22
It's a great pleasure to welcome
11:23
BitGet CEO, Gracie
11:25
Chen to the show. It's been a couple
11:26
of months since we last caught up.
11:28
So first things first, Gracie, how
11:29
are you doing?
11:30
I'm good.
11:31
That's why I was sharing.
11:33
We want to share the
11:36
London beautiful skyline
11:38
with our audience.
11:39
And I'm in London.
11:41
Fantastic.
11:44
Yeah, I guess first things first,
11:46
I wanted to get your thoughts on
11:47
Jack Mallers stepping down as
11:49
CEO of 21.
11:50
I mean, it's just a big breaking
11:52
story that's come out this
11:53
afternoon. I don't know if you've
11:54
ever met Jack Mallas before and your
11:56
general thoughts, but maybe
11:58
an interesting indication of where
12:00
we're at in terms of Bitcoin
12:01
treasury companies and the
12:03
outlook there.
12:04
Yeah, I don't know Jack personally,
12:06
but I've met many different
12:08
DAT company CEOs in
12:11
Asia and in
12:13
the West, like in London or in
12:15
the US, especially based in
12:17
Hong Kong and maybe the United
12:19
States.
12:20
Some of them we actually had
12:22
a lot of discussion around, you
12:23
know, the DAT business model about
12:26
more than a year before I was also
12:28
reached by a lot for
12:30
investment bankers who wanted to...
12:33
Discussed with us on setting
12:35
previously our exchange platform
12:37
token BGB as in
12:39
the DAT model.
12:39
And we send them to all those
12:41
friends and
12:44
partners.
12:45
In general, I would say DAT
12:48
models, in my opinion, there
12:49
will only be a few survivors.
12:52
And that would be the top of the
12:54
top. The top coin and
12:56
the top companies, the top DATs
12:59
serving those coins.
13:00
Anything falling outside of.
13:02
Top 10 cryptocurrencies,
13:05
I personally think it's going
13:07
to be hard to run a DAT,
13:09
mainly because how that model,
13:11
the so-called spiral
13:13
winning model, will be
13:15
based on a successful
13:17
blue chip cryptocurrency
13:19
that's generally
13:21
an upscale in the
13:23
upcoming market, no matter whether
13:25
we think how
13:27
long this bear market is going to
13:28
be. But in general, I think it's not
13:30
easy to run a DAT company.
13:32
And I've heard a lot complaints from
13:33
my friends who are top DAT
13:36
companies.
13:38
Yeah, it's definitely pretty tough
13:39
out there.
13:40
I'm not sure if you saw, but we
13:42
actually traveled to Abu Dhabi
13:44
and sat down with CZ for the
13:46
inaugural starting block show.
13:48
And one of the conversations we had
13:50
around was
13:52
the BNC, which was a BNB-based
13:55
digital asset treasury company,
13:57
and sort of how that had probably
13:59
fared not as well as
14:02
EZ Labs would have liked.
14:03
So yeah, definitely an indication
14:05
Things are tough in the market and
14:06
I'm really hoping that we can chat
14:08
to Jack sometime soon.
14:10
Let's talk a little bit about
14:11
BitGet.
14:12
You've had some interesting
14:14
sort of takes on X
14:16
in recent months and you
14:18
recently had your H1
14:20
kind of report where you talk about
14:22
Bitget looking to become a universal
14:24
exchange.
14:25
This is something that I've asked
14:26
quite a few different people at the
14:28
helm of different big
14:30
exchanges out there.
14:32
And I think my general
14:34
thesis is that the biggest
14:36
cryptocurrency exchanges will
14:38
become, you know,
14:40
they could challenge the
14:42
likes of the New York Stock
14:43
Exchange, et cetera, because they're
14:44
already the place where people would
14:46
go to trade crypto, but everyone's
14:48
onboarding, you know equity
14:50
stocks.
14:52
Can you talk to us a little bit
14:53
about your universal exchange thesis
14:54
and how you see it playing out?
14:56
Sure, Wei came
14:58
up with the term universal exchange
14:59
more than a year ago So
15:02
it wasn't like a new narrative that
15:04
we are talking about only this year
15:06
actually We've
15:08
been building on not just you know
15:10
promoting the idea, but also
15:11
building like really delivering
15:13
Products on the concept
15:15
of universal exchange for for about
15:17
a year time. So just to give
15:19
you some data points on that
15:20
Basically, about a year ago,
15:23
we started to talk about universal
15:24
exchange, and in our opinion,
15:27
universal exchange means, by
15:29
the way, short term is UEX.
15:32
And you can see, probably you've
15:34
been in crypto world for a long
15:36
time, you know, DEX and CEX,
15:37
decentralized exchange.
15:39
And in our opinion, since 2020,
15:42
four or five-ish,
15:44
there are a lot of stratified
15:45
assets, especially in the
15:50
those cryptocurrencies or
15:52
those tokens, not necessarily just
15:54
different crypto anymore,
15:56
but those RWA products to our users
15:58
and we've seen a lot of demand
16:00
since then.
16:01
So we think, you know, just calling
16:02
ourselves a CES or DS is not very
16:05
accurate. Number one, there should
16:06
be more assets covered than
16:08
just crypto. Number two we
16:10
are still running as a centralized
16:12
exchange, but we offer a lot of
16:14
decentralized assets
16:15
already, including RWA.
16:18
So, UEX, in our opinion,
16:20
have a better meaning to
16:22
cover the more universal
16:24
asset expansion, as well
16:26
as the philosophical
16:28
integration
16:30
of both DEX and CEX.
16:32
So that's the idea about this
16:34
term. But since we shipped
16:36
the idea and the products
16:39
of Universal Exchange last year.
16:41
Now we are seeing a
16:43
lot of very strong attractions.
16:45
At its peak, which was
16:47
in March this year,
16:49
in BeGET, 40% of
16:51
the trading volume are
16:53
from non-crypto assets.
16:54
And those are mainly equities,
16:58
gold and silver, those kind of
16:59
commodities.
17:01
And even in
17:03
Q2, we are still seeing a long of
17:05
growth. For example, our
17:07
total spot volume.
17:09
Have about 20 to 30
17:11
percent coming from
17:14
TradFi assets rather
17:16
than crypto.
17:18
And also the general beget
17:20
spot volume actually increased more
17:22
than 100 percent quarter to
17:24
quarter to approximately
17:27
263 billion.
17:29
And that's a daily
17:31
average daily volume
17:33
more than three
17:35
billion. So that's a lot of
17:37
very exciting news coming up.
17:39
And back to your point
17:41
about universal exchange,
17:44
I would say, are we
17:45
challengers to NASDAQ and NYSE?
17:48
I probably don't think so.
17:51
At least at this point of time, we
17:52
are more collaborators.
17:54
I've been discussing,
17:56
having a lot of conversations with
17:58
NYSE and NASDAq both,
18:01
especially those who are based in
18:03
New York.
18:04
Actually, right before London, I was
18:05
in New York for another week
18:07
and we were having some
18:10
meetings with them on how
18:11
can we get help distributing
18:13
their different
18:15
tokenized version of
18:18
the assets and then how can I
18:20
collaborate.
18:22
So yeah, generally, it's not a
18:23
PR answer.
18:25
I very sincerely think
18:27
that we are collaborating together
18:29
because NYC and Nasdaq
18:31
still have the largest liquidity.
18:33
And they are the platform
18:36
for all those tokens to do
18:37
IPO.
18:38
Well, for us, we get,
18:41
we are still considering ourselves
18:42
as a universal exchange
18:44
that crypto is part of it.
18:47
Tokenized stocks is another part of
18:48
the assets where we are
18:51
providing, but we
18:53
need to do this together with NYSE
18:54
and ASAC together with a lot of
18:57
RWA issuance providers,
19:00
as well as broker dealer license
19:01
providers in the US.
19:04
Yeah, I tend to think
19:06
that it's kind of like the
19:07
singularity happening for the crypto
19:09
industry where everything just
19:10
amalgamates. But I think that's
19:12
probably a lot further down the line
19:14
than one would think.
19:16
One of the other threads I wanted to
19:17
pull on from that H1 report is
19:20
your comment that around 52% of
19:22
your users are holding stocks and
19:24
crypto.
19:25
At what stage does that become even
19:27
more? Because I mean, if
19:29
I wanted to.
19:30
Like, just as a personal anecdote, I
19:32
was using eToro to have access,
19:35
you know, to equities
19:37
and other financial products.
19:39
But if I can do it in the same
19:41
application or exchange that
19:42
I'm buying Bitcoin from,
19:45
for example, it's just easier to do
19:46
it all in one place.
19:47
Is that kind of the
19:50
direction that you see this going
19:51
in? And do you
19:53
think that crypto exchanges actually
19:55
have an advantage here as opposed
19:57
to other products and services or
19:59
even. Traditional exchanges like
20:01
NYSE and NASDAQ that don't
20:03
have the global reach that
20:05
crypto exchanges do.
20:07
Global rich is definitely one
20:09
thing that we are familiar with
20:11
as a global exchange covering
20:14
more than 100 different countries.
20:18
Another advantage that I would
20:20
argue that central exchange or
20:22
universal exchange has is
20:24
around 24-7
20:26
assets coverage because crypto
20:28
by default, by day one,
20:30
it is a 24-seven market.
20:33
And then only last
20:35
year or this year, NYSE and NASDAQ
20:37
and many other more
20:39
traditional exchanges start to
20:41
looking to, oh, how can we achieve
20:42
not even 24-7, but
20:44
at least 23-5.
20:46
That is one conversation I
20:48
had with one of the largest exchange
20:50
out there. Like how can they achieve
20:51
24, 23-five to start
20:53
with? And it is not
20:55
easy. And for me, I was quite
20:58
surprised because Like I
20:59
said, day one, our default model
21:01
is 24-7.
21:03
And then look at their issues
21:05
and their current solutions and
21:07
their changes of the current
21:09
solution in order to achieve the 24-
21:11
7 or 23-5 sort of model
21:13
is actually quite complicated.
21:16
They need to think
21:19
about how can we
21:22
shuffle around different times
21:24
and. Then it's
21:26
just not a
21:28
by-default model in that
21:30
case.
21:31
But I think that's a quite
21:32
interesting conversation that
21:34
we had.
21:35
And then for us,
21:37
yes, you pointed out that, correct,
21:40
in our H1
21:42
report, the first quarter,
21:44
So our first half of the year
21:45
report.
21:47
52% of our total
21:49
users hold both crypto
21:51
and stocks.
21:52
And obviously, a year ago,
21:54
the number is only.
21:56
They only have crypto.
21:57
They can buy Bitcoin Ethereum,
22:00
as well as some altcoins, but it's
22:02
only crypto that we were serving.
22:04
But we actually launched
22:06
our RWA
22:08
solution on tokenized stocks,
22:11
which is called Reality, only
22:13
in early June.
22:14
And now about one month
22:16
and a half.
22:17
Passed by.
22:18
Reality has already have
22:20
more than 100 million in
22:22
AUM.
22:24
And a lot of people ask me, okay, so
22:25
you guys distributed UNDO and Nextox
22:28
before.
22:29
Similarly, Binance has, you know,
22:31
B-Stock.
22:33
And what is, how is our
22:35
token different?
22:37
So Binance solution is
22:39
called B-Token,
22:41
or B-stock, I can't remember.
22:43
It's bee stocks.
22:44
Yeah.
22:45
But basically there
22:47
are a lot of differences.
22:48
I'm happy to dive deeper into that,
22:50
but I think right now I want to
22:53
emphasize or just highlight that
22:56
even within just one and
22:58
a half months of launch of reality,
23:00
we've already seen a lot
23:01
attractions.
23:02
The daily trading volume of
23:04
our token only is
23:06
around 30 to 50 million
23:08
and the total AUM is more than 100
23:10
million.
23:12
Yeah, it's really impressive to see
23:13
the growth. I mean, you're not the
23:14
only ones, like a
23:16
Robinhood chain has just gone live.
23:18
And when I was seeing some of the
23:20
ex-posts out there about the volume
23:23
and the value being moved around,
23:26
far eclipsing sort of
23:28
fees generated on the Ethereum
23:31
base chain, that kind of
23:32
blew my mind a little bit.
23:33
But I mean like you've got Robinhood
23:35
Chain, you've Got Binance and
23:36
B-stocks.
23:38
You guys just launched your
23:40
offering a little less than a month
23:42
ago.
23:44
How do you see the competition
23:45
playing out here?
23:46
Because I can imagine behind closed
23:48
doors, it's definitely a big
23:50
competition.
23:51
I know everyone's friendly about it
23:52
when they're talking to the media,
23:53
but there's definitely a bit race
23:55
and a lot of competition ahead
23:57
between all the big exchanges and
23:59
having these different ways of
24:01
tokenizing stock shares
24:03
and all sorts of real world assets.
24:05
Yeah, so your question
24:07
was our key difference or
24:09
yeah, okay
24:11
I feel okay what
24:13
we saw in the market right
24:15
now is everyone has
24:17
their different approaches and
24:19
everyone every single
24:22
service providers
24:24
there such as Undo or B-Stock
24:26
or reality have their
24:28
own made their own choices around
24:30
what they want to value
24:32
the most.
24:33
For us we And we value
24:35
liquidity the most.
24:37
And I think that's an
24:39
important decision that we make.
24:41
For example,
24:43
our liquidity is
24:46
actually NYSE and NASDAQ
24:48
direct liquidity.
24:50
And by the way, that's
24:52
our token. And I think it's
24:54
important when we were thinking
24:56
designing the
24:59
product specifics.
25:01
And by way, I actually want to
25:03
challenge any other
25:05
service providers out there on
25:07
liquidity spreads.
25:08
I could bet one Bitcoin.
25:10
If another RWA product right
25:12
now can say that they have
25:14
the same liquidity as our token,
25:16
because in my opinion, or at least
25:18
what I know from the market,
25:20
BigGAD is the only exchange that
25:21
provides NYSE and NASDAQ
25:23
linked liquidity for our
25:25
RWA stock
25:27
solution.
25:28
Again, I think it's important
25:30
because when there's a major
25:32
user, like if you are just
25:34
placing one Nvidia,
25:36
it doesn't really matter in terms of
25:38
the liquidity spread.
25:39
But if you want to buy one million
25:41
of NVDA on
25:43
us, the liquidity is
25:45
very, very important.
25:47
So we think having
25:49
the NYSE and NASDAQ directly
25:51
linked to liquidity is
25:53
a key differentiation factor
25:56
that our token has.
25:58
And that's why we want to
26:00
own that narrative.
26:02
And yeah, here am I.
26:04
I can make that one Bitcoin bet.
26:07
I hope someone takes you up on it
26:09
because you might find yourself
26:12
one Bitcoin richer.
26:16
I want to talk to you a little bit
26:17
about, obviously,
26:20
Bitcoin's price, the overall
26:21
markets, like you said right at the
26:23
beginning of the interview.
26:25
We're in a bear market.
26:26
It's no secret.
26:27
It's been pretty tough.
26:29
When you look at your own
26:31
users on platform and how
26:33
they're trading.
26:36
Are big get traders de-risking?
26:39
Are they buying the dip?
26:40
Are they rotating into different
26:41
things now that they've got RWA
26:43
and tokenized stocks at
26:45
their fingertips?
26:46
Are they moving into conventional
26:48
stocks?
26:50
What sort of trends are you seeing?
26:52
We are seeing more of a rotation
26:54
rather than simple
26:56
risk of behavior in this
26:58
market.
27:00
As in 2026,
27:02
specifically, I think,
27:04
you know, stocks, gold,
27:06
Bitcoin all have different
27:09
factors to drive
27:11
them going up or down.
27:14
And users are trying to capture
27:16
their their
27:18
at least use their, you build.
27:20
Their judgment or
27:22
logic to decide on
27:25
what's the
27:28
change of the specific
27:30
asset class.
27:33
And because at BeGET, people
27:35
can trade all of those assets
27:37
together with, you know, Forex,
27:40
oil and many more
27:42
major asset classes
27:44
out there, we are seeing
27:46
users to trade differently
27:48
and rotate.
27:50
Accordingly.
27:51
For example, on June 23,
27:55
our stock product already
27:57
reached about 6.5
28:00
percent of the total activity.
28:02
And again, keep in mind that we only
28:03
launched our stocks very,
28:06
very recently.
28:08
So yeah, so I would say it's not
28:09
pure de-risking, it's more of a
28:11
rotating.
28:13
And retail versus institutions on
28:15
the platform now, like who
28:17
do you see selling, who's
28:18
accumulating?
28:19
It's been interesting to see the
28:21
sort of turnaround after like,
28:23
it was almost like two months of,
28:24
you know, deep art flows
28:26
and Bitcoin ETFs in particular,
28:28
that narrative is now changing.
28:31
Well, who is selling, who's
28:33
accumulating?
28:34
At this current market,
28:37
our retail and institutions
28:39
are both,
28:40
sort of doing both.
28:43
So it's hard to totally
28:45
just make a
28:46
very clear cut on
28:49
one is selling and one is
28:50
accumulating. But one thing I want
28:52
to point out is at
28:54
Bitcoin being somewhere
28:57
on a 64 K right
28:59
now Especially
29:01
within the past one
29:03
week, the stock market has
29:05
been pretty
29:07
in a downward trend.
29:11
One thing I noticed is that retails
29:13
are more panicked,
29:15
while institutions are more
29:17
just you know, discussing with
29:19
us things
29:22
like. Okay, is the RWA
29:24
sort of growth real?
29:26
And how real that is?
29:28
Should they start to think about,
29:31
for example, market maker
29:33
was asking me yesterday,
29:35
should they step into the
29:37
stock perpetual market at big
29:39
get rather than just
29:41
being market maker for our
29:43
cryptocurrencies?
29:45
And you know, those are more, I
29:47
would say. Uh maybe meaningful
29:49
conversations or or
29:51
not panic sort of conversation
29:53
like real builder conversation that
29:55
i'm having with institutions but
29:57
retails are more like okay
29:59
bitcoin today is trading at
30:01
50 58k should i should
30:03
i buy at the tip dip is this the dip
30:05
at all and then uh
30:08
Or on the other extreme,
30:10
they're like, oh, it's 58K.
30:12
Bitcoin is dead.
30:13
This is like a
30:15
totally like a bubble.
30:17
And I should just sell all my
30:18
Bitcoin.
30:20
So that's the major difference
30:22
we're seeing in terms of retail
30:23
institutions.
30:25
And in 2025
30:27
and 2026, actually
30:29
institutional growth is something
30:31
we value a lot more.
30:33
And institutions include some
30:34
individuals, right?
30:35
Like some individual.
30:36
Very professional traders.
30:38
We count them as institutional
30:40
clients because they use API
30:43
to trade all
30:44
the time rather than just like
30:47
manually doing that and
30:49
also their requirements
30:51
of onboarding,
30:53
of choosing the different platforms
30:55
is also quite different.
30:57
Yeah, so before 2024,
31:00
maybe I would say 80% of our volume
31:01
are retails.
31:03
But today, in mid-2026,
31:05
I would argue we have about a
31:08
5-5 sort of ratio between
31:10
retail and institution.
31:13
When it comes to leverage, I mean,
31:15
October 10 last year was cataclysmic
31:17
for the cryptocurrency industry, but
31:18
there were a lot of people out there
31:19
that said that it was necessary
31:21
to shake out a lot of leverage from
31:23
the system.
31:24
I mean I know we're not in October,
31:26
it's still a few months away, so
31:27
it's not yet a year since that
31:29
event happened, but can you give
31:31
us your kind of take on what you
31:33
think happened, and do you
31:34
think that traders in
31:36
the last year, in 2026,
31:39
have been a lot more careful
31:41
with the leverage that they're
31:42
trading with.
31:43
Yes, I do think people
31:45
start to be more careful about their
31:47
leverage.
31:48
If something in 2022 taught
31:51
us about running exchange and
31:53
choosing an exchange, it's
31:55
probably about commingling users'
31:57
funds. And that's the key issue we
31:59
saw from FTX collapse.
32:01
And then if something taught us
32:03
an important lesson in 2025,
32:05
I would say, yes, deleveraging.
32:08
And we don't even need a
32:10
year to tell the difference.
32:12
We just need a week because right
32:14
after 10-10, within about
32:16
a week's time, we saw the
32:18
trading volume in cryptocurrencies
32:20
went down about 30
32:23
to 40%.
32:24
And keep in mind, Biget is one of
32:26
the largest crypto exchange.
32:27
I can't imagine what's happening to
32:29
the very long tail,
32:31
smaller, you know, 20 plus.
32:34
Sort of rankings change.
32:35
I think many of them are either
32:37
losing a lot more
32:39
of their clients or even
32:41
nearly bankrupt, bankruptcy.
32:43
And I've heard a lot of bankruptcy
32:46
exchange stories
32:47
since 2021 and
32:49
two and of course this
32:52
year.
32:53
So yeah, so even within a
32:55
week, we can tell that TenTen
32:58
did quite a damage to
33:00
the crypto community, especially
33:01
from the retails and institutions.
33:05
Trading volume, which
33:07
was about 30 to 40 percent decrease.
33:10
A lot of people point, I mean,
33:12
I'm kicking myself for not asking
33:14
CZ three weeks ago, you know,
33:16
a lot of people were saying Binance
33:17
was the cause of 1010.
33:19
I know it's more than a year ago
33:21
now. Like, did you ever internally
33:23
manage to point a finger or really
33:25
figure out what led to that
33:27
happening?
33:28
I don't want to comment
33:30
about a peer
33:32
exchange, but I
33:34
guess the whole industry knows it
33:36
started off with a technical
33:37
glitch at
33:39
Binance, but later on there are a
33:41
lot of things playing around and
33:43
it's not just Binance.
33:44
It's a lot of exchanges where
33:46
we see large liquidation.
33:49
Yeah, that's why I
33:51
wouldn't totally blame CZ
33:53
or Binance just for what
33:55
happened on 1010.
33:56
And I think it is an important
33:57
lesson that the whole industry needs
33:59
to learn in terms of deleveraging,
34:01
in terms of thinking about,
34:04
for example, I think Athena, USDE
34:06
had a lot
34:08
of deleverage and
34:10
because there were people like
34:13
basically USDE is offering somewhere
34:15
like a 15% yearly return.
34:17
And there are people who.
34:18
Just stake their
34:20
USDT
34:22
and borrow USDE,
34:25
and then stake USDE to borrow
34:27
another more USDE.
34:28
You know, that kind of spirally,
34:33
there's a specific term for
34:35
that, but I don't know the
34:37
English name.
34:38
It's just like basically,
34:41
in Chinese it would be...
34:43
Rehypothecation, I think, is the
34:44
word.
34:44
Yeah, something like that.
34:46
So just like in a spiral
34:48
effect that when USD
34:50
went a little bit de-packed
34:52
and then huge liquidation is
34:54
happening.
34:55
So those are also lessons that we
34:58
are learning. For example, we also
35:00
at BeGET provide certain
35:02
USD or stablecoin,
35:04
not USDT specifically, but
35:06
many other stablecoins for similar
35:08
effects. But we want to make sure
35:10
those stablecoins have a
35:12
better mechanism of
35:14
than, for example,
35:16
USDE, which is not fully
35:18
backed by
35:20
TBOs and
35:23
USDE per se.
35:26
But yeah, so those kind of specifics
35:28
of the risks control
35:30
and risk management is something
35:32
that became far more
35:34
important when it
35:35
comes to us designing a
35:37
financial product and providing
35:40
certain different cryptocurrencies
35:42
to our users.
35:45
My producer just told me that my
35:47
camera is frozen, so I'm going to
35:48
tee up the next question and reload
35:49
my camera.
35:51
When you look at Coinbase,
35:53
Binance, and Robinhood all having
35:54
their own change, has BitGit
35:56
ever considered following in this
35:58
direction and launching its
36:00
own L2 or even just its
36:02
own chain?
36:03
Yeah, the trend is definitely real.
36:06
Only a chain can give you
36:08
some fee capture, some ecosystem
36:10
control, some developer
36:12
base, and I can totally
36:14
see why they are
36:15
doing that.
36:17
For us, our approach is slightly
36:18
different, mainly because
36:21
we do want to
36:23
be more focused on UEX
36:25
rather than building another chain.
36:27
We have very limited resource,
36:29
very limited talent pool, very
36:31
limited time, and we want to
36:33
focus all these resource into
36:35
the things that we think are most
36:37
important.
36:38
And honestly, building another chain
36:40
is not one of them.
36:41
So our approach is that
36:43
we've invested and incubated
36:46
some chains and we've been always
36:48
very supportive to different chains.
36:50
I'm actually having a conversation
36:51
very soon with Coinbase
36:53
and Jesse
36:55
from the base, who is the founder.
36:57
And of course, WEI
36:59
as a big ecosystem
37:01
are supporting many other chains.
37:03
For example, Big Hit Wallet has
37:05
already operated across more
37:07
than 100 chains.
37:10
And the team that I
37:12
mentioned that we incubated is
37:14
called Morph.
37:15
And Morph is building heavily as
37:17
a individual public
37:19
chain, but mainly on
37:21
cross-border transactions, pay-file,
37:23
et cetera, not necessarily.
37:26
On only supporting Big
37:28
Ed as the ecosystem.
37:30
So our approach is, I would say is
37:31
very different.
37:32
It's mainly because of
37:34
that strategic choice that
37:36
we needed to make. So it's a little
37:38
bit different philosophy, but
37:40
I think it is the right thing
37:42
for them.
37:44
At least if they're doing so, I
37:46
hope it is a right thing.
37:48
For us, our approach different.
37:51
Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, just
37:52
seeing Robinhood chain, especially
37:54
in the last couple of weeks, you
37:56
know, really just exploding in on
37:57
chain usage. But to be fair, a lot
37:59
of that's been meme coins.
38:00
And I don't love meme coins is my
38:02
obviously my, my humble opinion, I
38:04
think it's it's gambling, and it's
38:05
not really a net positive for the
38:07
industry. But it's generating fees,
38:08
and its it's making money.
38:09
And so it's interesting to see it
38:11
play out in real time.
38:12
I wanted to chat a little bit about
38:14
hyperliquid and get your general
38:15
views. Yeah, we spoke to CZ about
38:17
this, you know, three weeks ago,
38:18
he's been fairly outspoken and
38:20
his main kind of warning
38:22
was like I've played this
38:24
game before and I
38:26
found out the hard way that at
38:28
some stage global regulators
38:30
etc will turn around and take
38:32
a hard look at you and there might
38:33
be some point where hyper liquid has
38:35
to you know actually follow through
38:37
with KYC etc but in
38:39
general do you see hyper liquid as
38:43
a big competitor in the
38:45
space for, obviously, I mean, it's
38:47
a decentralized offering, but.
38:49
Do you see a few more of these
38:51
hyper liquid Aster type
38:53
platforms popping up and is
38:56
there room for more?
38:59
Again, Hyperliquid is an issue,
39:03
like you pointed out, it's a trading
39:04
platform, it is a peer company.
39:07
And by the way, I've had historical
39:08
issues whenever I
39:11
comment on HyperliQUID, no matter if
39:13
it's positive or negative, that
39:15
both the hype community as
39:16
well as the general crypto community
39:19
were very much angry
39:21
and went against
39:23
me a little bit.
39:24
So I tried to play safe.
39:26
And. Okay.
39:27
And I made that decision now
39:29
to comment on hyperliquid
39:31
in terms of that perspective
39:33
you're asking.
39:34
But I want to share that I
39:37
think CZ has a valid point
39:39
and we've
39:42
never need to
39:44
pay like a 4.3 billion
39:46
sort of fine and serve,
39:48
I don't know, three or four months
39:49
in prison. I hope I don't need to.
39:51
And I'll make sure I don't need to
39:53
I hope so too.
39:55
But yeah, I think he has
39:57
a valid point and
40:00
for me, how
40:01
I view Hyperliquid is sometimes I
40:03
just tell my team that we should
40:05
really respect that
40:07
HyperliQUID only have like dozens
40:09
of people and they can
40:11
make such a great trading
40:13
platform where
40:15
in my opinion they really
40:17
know what they are doing.
40:18
But what I mean by that is
40:21
what I call is 2080
40:24
principle.
40:25
What 2018 principle is
40:27
in trading, or
40:29
just like in anything about life.
40:31
Generally, there are only 20% of
40:33
the things that are important, 80%
40:35
of the things are actually not
40:37
important. So we want to focus
40:39
on those 20%
40:41
important things and
40:43
important business units
40:45
and make it really good.
40:47
And if you look at Hyperliquid, they
40:49
don't really have on-off rep.
40:51
They don't have like a customer
40:53
service department.
40:54
But they do focus
40:56
on what, probably in their opinion,
40:59
the most important 20% which is
41:01
about the trading tool and
41:03
the best liquidity.
41:04
And that's their choice.
41:07
Again, we have a lot
41:09
more people.
41:10
What I heard is that Hyperliquid
41:11
only has like less
41:13
than 20 employees.
41:15
It's amazing because we have 2,200
41:18
times
41:20
of the number.
41:22
So if they can achieve
41:24
the same sort of liquidity as
41:26
we do, but given like
41:29
a 100 times difference
41:31
in terms of human capital,
41:33
I think there is something that we
41:34
should learn from hyperliquid.
41:36
Yeah, so that would be my comment on
41:38
hyperliQUID. Again, I
41:40
don't think it's just PR.
41:41
I very sincerely think that
41:43
I admire Jeff and
41:45
what they are building hyperliQuID.
41:47
I think we have a lot to learn from
41:48
them. And I encourage my team.
41:51
Everyone that we get to learn from
41:53
that, like to identify what's
41:55
the real needs out there
41:57
from our users, and what's their
41:58
real needs for your specific
42:00
business unit that you should
42:02
focus on.
42:03
Yeah, I just want to caveat that.
42:06
I think it was interesting how the
42:07
Hyperliquid community reacted to
42:09
CZ's comments in recent months,
42:12
because obviously CZ
42:14
was one of the people sort of
42:16
backing Aster as a competitor,
42:18
and lots of people saying, like, oh,
42:19
he's using his platform to
42:21
say negative things about them.
42:23
But when we spoke, it was very
42:25
genuine. It's like, I've
42:27
seen this happen to me, and
42:29
I've experienced this.
42:30
And if you're going to go in this
42:31
direction and at some point.
42:33
You get too big to ignore,
42:35
and then you do have to kind of
42:36
listen. So I appreciate that you're
42:38
also just trading carefully about
42:40
what you say, because
42:42
you have to.
42:43
CryptoX is pretty
42:46
brutal.
42:48
Gracie, I did want to chat to you a
42:49
little bit about AI.
42:51
Obviously, BitGit has onboarded
42:53
a lot of AI tools.
42:54
You've got Git Agent, which allows
42:56
people to execute trades now.
42:58
How autonomous is that?
43:00
Are you seeing that users are
43:02
actually pretty comfortable now
43:03
letting AI execute trades
43:05
for them, especially considering the
43:07
volatile kind of market conditions
43:09
we've been experiencing in recent
43:11
months?
43:12
We've seen quite
43:14
different reactions from our users.
43:16
There's one specific group of users
43:18
who are very AI,
43:22
leaning towards AI.
43:23
Actually, just to share with you
43:25
some data, until today,
43:27
there are more than one million
43:28
users who have
43:30
done some sort of AI-powered
43:33
trades. It could be through
43:35
a big get agent,
43:37
which is our AI.
43:38
Chat bot, it could
43:40
be through just AI
43:42
generated trading activities,
43:46
and the volume out there,
43:48
AI powered trading volume is
43:50
more than 1.2
43:52
billion.
43:53
And then I
43:56
think another data we have is
43:58
only in the first half
44:00
of 2026, 51%
44:02
of big users have already
44:04
used AI powered training tools.
44:07
And get agent records
44:09
more than 100K
44:11
daily visits.
44:12
So those are some numbers that
44:15
can indicate a lot of users
44:17
tried AI and
44:19
did some trading.
44:21
But then there are also the
44:23
other group of users who just want
44:25
to do manual
44:27
trading and who don't
44:29
believe in AI, especially in a
44:31
volatile market.
44:31
I can summarize in both.
44:33
And as an exchange, I don't make
44:35
decisions for my users.
44:36
I just provide those tools and make
44:38
sure they have the best liquidity,
44:41
they have best tool.
44:43
The price of, for example,
44:44
RWA is the same
44:46
as what they see
44:48
on MIIC and NASDAQ,
44:50
things like that.
44:51
So we want to
44:56
be very aware of the
44:58
AI trends and what those
45:00
different AI tools can achieve.
45:02
I personally use all
45:04
the best language, large language
45:06
models, LLMs, all the time.
45:08
For example, Claude, I'm
45:10
a very devoted
45:12
Claude user.
45:13
We spend nearly a thousand on them
45:15
in terms of our enterprise solution
45:17
with Claude.
45:19
And we provide the same sort of
45:20
access to all
45:22
the big-ged employees so that
45:24
everyone is aware of
45:26
what the best LLM there can
45:28
achieve and can help us
45:30
make. Looking more efficient
45:32
for our work.
45:34
I'm glad to hear that you're a
45:36
Claude Maxey because I think a lot
45:37
of us here at the block are also
45:39
Claude maxes. We're using it every
45:40
day, playing around with different
45:42
things. I'm curious, what's
45:44
been the biggest impact to your
45:45
overall day-to-day
45:48
work with Claude
45:49
and maybe a few other LLM
45:51
tools that you use.
45:53
There are a lot.
45:55
There are too many.
45:56
But something I can think of is,
45:59
for example, AI is
46:01
actually, or Claude is a
46:03
very nice
46:05
strategic partner
46:07
I have.
46:08
There are lot of things that I want
46:09
to chat and
46:12
help me streamline
46:14
certain things.
46:15
And then before we announce
46:17
it to you know, our executive
46:19
team or our whole big
46:21
get employees and as well as
46:23
the public like the crypto
46:25
community.
46:26
So there are a lot of things that I
46:27
use Claude just to help
46:29
me collect information,
46:31
help me organize some thoughts.
46:33
But I also want to highlight even
46:35
Claude, in my opinion, is the best
46:37
of LLM there that
46:39
they can still make mistakes.
46:41
Human being or, you know,
46:43
the so-called carbon, I call myself
46:45
carbon, originated human
46:47
being, and maybe AI as
46:49
silicon, human being.
46:51
Like, we need to work together, but
46:53
only the carbon one can really
46:55
be responsible for what you
46:57
provide there, right, as
46:59
a platform or what you say.
47:01
For example, on my on my tweet,
47:03
I'm actually quite.
47:05
Upfront and straightforward sharing
47:07
with my Twitter
47:09
followers and community
47:11
there that I do use AI all the
47:13
time.
47:14
If I post something, sometimes I use
47:16
AI to help me organize thoughts,
47:18
to help put a little bit of cute
47:20
emojis there, to have
47:22
some photos and
47:24
graphs and videos,
47:26
but I need to be responsible
47:28
for my Twitter no matter
47:30
how much I use it.
47:32
Bye. So I think that's the key
47:34
part that we need to
47:37
be aware
47:39
when using AI and using
47:41
Cloud or any other things.
47:43
Yeah, for sure. I think we all have
47:45
to be. We had a fascinating
47:46
conversation with Ilya Polisukhin
47:48
from NIA yesterday, and we were
47:50
talking about the centralizing
47:52
force of AI and why we need
47:53
decentralized alternatives, which is
47:55
another interesting thread to
47:57
pull on.
47:59
But yeah, I guess my final question,
48:00
with BitGit and the
48:02
overall sort of AI tools we have
48:04
now, are there more integrations
48:06
that you're gonna bring or are you
48:08
quite happy with?
48:09
The tools that you're offering your
48:10
users right now when it comes to
48:12
AI assisted trading and that kind of
48:14
thing.
48:15
For AI,
48:17
I would say we are
48:20
maybe 80% or 70%
48:22
happy with where we are now.
48:24
We want to always, again,
48:26
catch up and provide with the best
48:28
tools that we see out there,
48:30
especially when it goes to crypto
48:31
trading or trading in general.
48:33
But we pretty much have a good
48:35
foundation already.
48:37
And again, right now,
48:39
what we get is doing a lot is
48:41
around identifying
48:43
our specific needs
48:45
and
48:47
it's not reshuffle or
48:49
shift our strategy, but it's be
48:52
more focused on what we
48:54
provide for our users.
48:57
Because UX is our key issue.
49:00
AI is a supporting tool,
49:02
but UX is the main thing
49:03
we're building here.
49:05
We're not here to build AI, we're
49:07
not a cloud that builds.
49:08
And LLM, et cetera, but we
49:10
use those AI tools.
49:11
So, UEX is the key theme.
49:13
And then in terms of UEX, who
49:15
are we exactly serving?
49:17
Actually, this morning I'm
49:19
having a meeting with our
49:21
team around,
49:23
we identified five
49:25
different groups who are using
49:27
BigEd as a UEX today.
49:29
And some of them are more
49:31
high-networked individual,
49:33
some are more retail,
49:35
some are more
49:37
asset management style, like
49:39
not really doing a lot of trading,
49:42
but more use crypto or use any
49:44
other asset classes
49:46
here that we provide as an asset
49:48
allocation, and some are more of
49:50
a trading style.
49:51
So we identify different user groups
49:53
and see what are the current
49:55
pain points that they have with
49:56
trading or with Big It, and
49:58
how can we solve those issues.
50:00
I think that's a more important and
50:02
meaningful conversation that we
50:03
should have internally and
50:05
externally.
50:06
In order to drive our UEX
50:08
great big picture.
50:11
But I also want to highlight, as
50:13
just like an individual myself,
50:15
I also do use
50:17
AI to do a lot of live coding.
50:19
That is something I find as
50:21
a side gig that I'm
50:23
doing.
50:24
I'm not a coder, although I learned
50:25
some basic Python
50:27
and C++ when I was
50:29
doing my undergrad.
50:31
I haven't been coding since then.
50:33
But right now with AI, you
50:35
can easily achieve some
50:37
ideas that you have.
50:39
For example, I've coded a
50:41
dashboard for
50:43
Bitcoin, so-called
50:45
Bitcoin buy at the dip.
50:47
And then I've have coded another
50:49
tool for
50:51
my wealth management.
50:52
And then, I shared it with many of
50:54
my high network individual friends.
50:56
So some of those interesting and
50:58
fun projects is what
51:00
I do as a side business.
51:01
But I think in general.
51:02
Um, yeah, it's just very amazing.
51:05
Uh, but Begin is still very much
51:07
focused on UX.
51:09
It's nice to hear that you're also
51:11
playing around with your spare time
51:13
with the, you know, Claude and other
51:14
things. Cause I think that's the
51:16
beauty of it. Right. Is that it just
51:18
removes the complexity and anyone,
51:20
um, can do kind
51:22
of anything right now, it feels
51:23
like, yeah, the internet
51:25
a few years ago, when you finally
51:27
realized that you could Google
51:28
anything and basically have the
51:29
knowledge, except now we've built
51:31
the tools that will actually serve.
51:32
You don't even have to do the heavy
51:33
lifting anymore. It just does it for
51:35
you. And Ilya from NIO was saying
51:37
yesterday, you have to assume now
51:39
that. Everyone is walking around
51:41
with super intelligence because
51:42
that's essentially what these tools
51:43
are giving you.
51:45
Gracie, my final question to you
51:46
because we nearly had you for an
51:47
hour and I really appreciate that
51:48
you're probably one of the busiest
51:49
people in the industry.
51:51
When it comes to your U.S.
51:53
Context, there's a lot of
51:54
expectations that clarity will be
51:56
passed in the Northern
51:58
Hemisphere summer.
51:59
Are there any sort of ambitions for
52:01
BITGET to break into that market
52:03
if clarity was to be passed and
52:05
how do you see the U.s.
52:06
Market as a whole?
52:07
Yeah First
52:09
of all, Clarity Act passed.
52:12
I'm more pessimistic
52:14
than optimistic today,
52:15
although I'm probably more
52:17
optimistic about two months
52:18
ago when I was in Consensus.
52:21
And by the way, I mentioned that I
52:23
was in New York only a couple of,
52:25
only three weeks ago,
52:28
and had a lot more conversation
52:29
with, you know, lawyers,
52:31
regulators, some industry
52:33
friend, the CEOs, just on
52:35
their thoughts on Clarity
52:37
act.
52:38
And because of the midterm
52:40
coming nearer and nearer,
52:43
seems that the expectation of
52:45
Clarity Act being passed is going
52:47
a little bit lower than earlier.
52:49
But my reaction
52:51
to that is with or without
52:54
a Clarity Act,
52:56
Begat has already made a decision to
52:58
enter the US market, which is
53:00
an important decision because we've
53:01
stayed away from the US market
53:04
pretty much since day one.
53:05
In 2022, before FTX
53:07
collapsed, we've given it a thought
53:09
about having something like Big Data
53:10
US.
53:11
But then FTX happened,
53:14
regulation become more unfriendly,
53:16
especially in the previous Biden
53:17
administration.
53:19
And we just decided to
53:21
stay under the radar.
53:22
We don't even want to work with the
53:23
US based employees
53:25
or KOLs.
53:27
So that's a little bit sad
53:29
because I do like the US and I
53:30
was based in Boston, New York at
53:32
that time.
53:33
The US was pretty much my
53:35
own second hometown.
53:37
But after that, I decided to move
53:39
back to Asia, just like
53:41
my personal living
53:43
base location.
53:45
And only this year we decided
53:46
to relook into the US market
53:48
and I'm leading that US expansion
53:50
plan. So we have a lot of
53:53
interesting things that we are
53:54
cooking, a lot of interesting people
53:56
that we're meeting every day.
53:57
And again,
53:59
entering the U.S.
54:00
Is an important decision, but that
54:02
decision is very much based on
54:04
the fact that we think
54:06
it's more lucrative to
54:08
look at the market now.
54:11
Crypto regulations are becoming more
54:13
friendly towards offshore exchanges
54:15
and it's a better time
54:17
in 2026.
54:18
But to do anything, like to start
54:20
a business out there, we do
54:22
need a lot of license, MTL,
54:25
CCM, DCO, FCM.
54:27
Broker-dealer, et cetera.
54:29
So there are a lot of rigid
54:31
licenses that we still need
54:33
to get with or without a
54:35
Clarity Act.
54:36
And I think the
54:38
Clarity act will probably make
54:40
some other regulations
54:42
who are not sure about
54:44
entering the U.S.
54:45
Market or are not about should I
54:47
start this crypto business or
54:49
not, will probably be
54:51
a difference for them because it
54:53
will make their regulation
54:55
and licensing.
54:57
Sort of framework easier,
54:59
but for us, that we made decision
55:02
already. Again, wave or without
55:04
clarity act.
55:05
I am entering the U.S.
55:06
Market and I want to enter the U S
55:08
market in the proper way by
55:10
getting all these license well
55:12
set up, individual,
55:14
independent entity, U.
55:16
S based entity, and, you know, board
55:18
of directors, teams, et
55:19
cetera, everything need to be ready
55:21
before we ship anything.
55:23
So that's my two sensors
55:25
on the U.S.
55:27
Market.
55:28
All right, so you didn't quite give
55:30
us a scoop, but we can go with
55:31
something like BitGate has big plans
55:33
for the USA.
55:34
And I hope you will come back on the
55:36
starting block and tell us
55:38
or give us the exclusive when it
55:39
does finally happen.
55:40
Sure.
55:42
Gracie, thank you so much for your
55:43
time.
55:44
We're going to let you go again,
55:47
a good friend of the show, and
55:49
always welcome back.
55:50
I hope you do come back with some
55:51
big news and headlines in the next
55:53
few weeks. But thank you, so much,
55:54
for joining us. Thank you.
55:56
Perfect. Thank you very much for
55:57
watching the Starting Block once
55:58
again. We broadcast daily right
56:00
here on X and YouTube.
56:02
So please like and retweet or
56:04
subscribe to our YouTube channel if
56:05
you're watching it there on YouTube.
56:07
And set a reminder, every day we
56:08
broadcast at 8.30 Eastern time in
56:10
the US. That's 2.30 Central
56:12
European time right
56:14
here in Europe. And sometimes we
56:16
change the time
56:18
to accommodate our guests like
56:19
Gracie today.
56:20
So thank you so much for watching.
56:22
We'll be back tomorrow with another
56:23
big show.
56:24
And I can tease that we'll have
56:25
Charles Hoskinson on the show on
56:27
Friday. We'll broadcasting a little
56:28
bit later in the day again.
56:30
So keep it locked on our social
56:32
media for more announcements on
56:33
those times.
56:34
Thank you so for joining us.
56:35
We'll catch you tomorrow.