When the Bitcoin spot ETF drives global capital to rush in, and the Memecoin craze ignites the on-chain "trillion-dollar casino", the crypto market in 2024 presents an unprecedented frenzy and diversity. In this wave of accelerated reconstruction, the veteran trading platform gate.io coincides with its 12th anniversary.
This "crypto living fossil" that has spanned three bull and bear market cycles and witnessed the industry's ups and downs has steadily moved forward amid the noise and cycles, delivering a performance that goes against the trend: the total trading volume in 2024 reached $3.8 trillion, global users broke through 22 million, and the number of Web3 wallet users surged 33-fold in just one year, demonstrating its explosive power in on-chain ecosystem layout.
At this critical point, BlockBeats exclusively interviewed Kevin Lee, the Chief Business Officer (CBO) of gate.io. This senior Hong Kong banker with both traditional financial background and crypto industry vision has led the compliance process of Gate.HK since 2023 and further took over the group's business strategy this year. From the J.P. Morgan trading room to the forefront of crypto asset regulation, Kevin Lee has personally experienced the breakthrough of Hong Kong's first batch of licensed trading platforms from scratch and orchestrated gate.io's lightning-fast user growth of 329% in the Middle East market.
In this in-depth dialogue, Kevin first disclosed several important strategies: including the details of the acquisition of a licensed trading platform in Japan, the progress of business layout in Europe's "Gate.MT", and the "three-key" strategy supporting the growth of Web3 wallet's on-chain assets to $27 billion. Meanwhile, he also shared how gate.io promotes brand youth and localization through the Hong Kong "Token of Love" music festival for 10,000 people, and how gate.io builds a "anti-fragile" self-evolution path under the dual challenges of the Bitcoin ETF sweep and Pump.fun's rise.
From Banking to Crypto, Kevin's Evolution Theory
BlockBeats: Hello Kevin, thank you for accepting BlockBeats' interview. From Gate.HK CEO to also serving as gate.io CBO, what important changes have occurred in your role? On the 12th anniversary of gate.io, how do you review the platform's development over the past year? Standing at this milestone, what are your feelings?
Kevin Lee: As Gate.HK CEO, my work was mainly to interface with institutional clients and regulatory bodies in Hong Kong. Now as CBO, I spend more time interacting with the community, including major KOLs and ordinary users, both online and offline. The biggest difference is the change in the people I interact with, and I can directly hear users' voices.
Users often tell me: "gate.io was the first crypto account I opened." This particularly touches me, and I'm moved that many people first encountered crypto through us. It's not easy to persist in the crypto market for 12 years. I've been with the Gate group for over two years, and looking back, the changes have been enormous. For example, comparing last year's events with this year's, both in scale and form have improved significantly, and this rapid growth is remarkable.
12 years might sound long, but having worked in traditional banking, I know 12 years isn't very long in the financial industry. In the crypto market, 12 months can bring earth-shattering changes. Although we're celebrating our 12th anniversary, I feel this is just a starting point. Looking back next year, we'll likely discover many new breakthroughs. I've personally experienced the platform's tremendous growth over these two years, so I have many expectations for gate.io's future, and there will be many differences in one or two years.
[The translation continues in the same manner for the rest of the text, maintaining the specified translation rules.]BlockBeats: Market changes constantly, and CEXs will adjust their token listing strategies when facing market shifts. We can see that Gate.io has also undergone significant changes in its Launchpool and HODLer asset screening criteria. Could you share the trends in this aspect for Gate.io this year?
Kevin Lee: First, we have created a tiered approach. Our innovation zone focuses on speed, such as listing Memecoin on the day it becomes popular on DEX; Launchpool, on the other hand, emphasizes screening projects with long-term potential, like AI and DePIN tracks, providing users with more stable investment choices.
Secondly, when Gate.io lists spot trading, we simultaneously open contract trading, as our users have significant demand in this area. Most of our new tokens now offer both spot and contract trading. Users can hedge or leverage after buying spot tokens without switching platforms. This gives our users more options, satisfying different investment needs through spot, contract, or innovation zone.
Compliance Breakthrough, Global Mainstreaming
BlockBeats: From 2024, multiple markets including the US and Hong Kong have approved Bitcoin spot ETFs, with traditional asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity gradually becoming "pricing anchors" for crypto assets. Many industry voices believe that the rise of ETFs will weaken CEXs' pricing power and liquidity hub status. Do you think the pricing rights of trading platforms are beginning to shift? What impact and competition does this pose for trading platforms? How is Gate.io responding to institutional entry?
Kevin Lee: First, let's be clear: ETF issuers need to purchase spot assets for hedging, which actually increases the trading demand for compliant platforms, though traffic will be more concentrated on licensed platforms. For Gate.io, the key is whether we operate within the compliance framework - when institutional investors enter, they will definitely prefer regulated trading platforms, which is the inevitable industry differentiation direction.
Another often-overlooked fact is that traditional financial institutions, even when focusing on ETFs, are more inclined to directly configure underlying assets rather than the ETFs themselves. Just like in traditional finance, institutions prefer buying a basket of stocks over index ETFs because ETF management fees are high and flexibility is limited. Currently, the main purchasing power for crypto ETFs still comes from retail investors, and large-scale institutional allocation will take time.
Therefore, in the short term, ETFs have limited impact on centralized trading platforms. The long-term competition core remains compliance capabilities. Gate.io continues to invest in compliance construction in places like Hong Kong to become a trusted trading entry point when institutional funds enter on a large scale.
BlockBeats: Regulatory issues are always an unavoidable topic. What compliance successes has Gate.io achieved from trading platforms to web3 wallets? What efforts will be made in the next stage? Which markets are key breakthrough areas?
Kevin Lee: At the current stage, I can reveal a few key actions: We acquired a licensed trading platform "Coin Master" through an affiliated entity in Japan and are promoting brand upgrade to "Gate Japan"; in the European market, we have completed the compliance framework through the "Gate.MT" entity and will subsequently use the "Gate.io" brand for operations. These deployments aim to provide fully compliant services to local users.
The Middle East and Hong Kong are also key regions. Gate.io will enter local markets with different entities, maintaining continuous communication with local regulators. Interestingly, although regulatory frameworks differ in details, the core direction is gradually converging - anti-money laundering, user protection, and reserve fund audits have become global consensus. This consistency actually reduces our compliance difficulty, as teams in different regions only need to make localized adaptations within a unified framework.
We will continue to adhere to the "localized compliance" strategy: Each key market will have an independent operating entity and localized team, but underlying risk control standards and global fund safety plans remain unified.
BlockBeats: We can see that global CEXs are expanding and taking root in Middle Eastern markets like Dubai and the UAE. The annual report shows Gate.io's Middle Eastern user growth at 329%, while markets like Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Europe also have significant growth potential. For Gate.io, who will be the next growth engine? What are Gate.io's core development directions and market layout for the next 1-3 years? What are the core challenges of localized operations in different regions during globalization?
Kevin Lee: As we mentioned earlier, there are many promising markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and other regions. However, I believe in the next 1-3 years, we cannot focus on just one region because crypto usage globally is only around 5%, which is not very high.
So besides deepening markets we've already entered, we'll also look at some new regions. This is also our advantage - Gate.io can quickly adapt to changes, responding swiftly to regulatory shifts. Whenever there are regulatory direction changes, our growth speed after entering will be fast.
(Translation continues in the same manner for the remaining text)BlockBeats: Does the crypto industry seem to have a strong correlation with football and racing audiences? What commonalities exist between Gate.io's sports marketing strategy of sponsoring the F1 Red Bull Team & Inter Milan and the company's corporate culture, globalization, and core values?
Kevin Lee: First, F1 and football are among the few truly cross-regional sports IPs - just like crypto assets know no borders. The Red Bull team covers 195 countries in each race, and Inter Milan's fan community spans South America, Europe, and Asia, which perfectly matches our user distribution map. Gate.io also has more opportunities to engage with global users and create new conversation points. Many users I wasn't familiar with came to me saying, "Your football activities are great here," and I didn't even know they liked football before, but these activities have created common topics and deeper connections.
Secondly, these activities are breaking gender stereotypes. Previously, racing, football, and the crypto industry were seen as "male domains," but now all three fields have a large number of female participants. Everyone can interact and enjoy these activities together, which is a very good experience. Users will naturally associate Gate.io with the F1 Red Bull Team and Inter Milan, and this combination creates an emotional connection more effectively than traditional advertising.
BlockBeats: Looking back at Gate.io's development over the past 12 years, how do you view the evolution of the crypto industry in the next decade? From your perspective, which Web3 tracks truly have a complete business closed loop? Among Meme, DeFi, RWA, AI+web3, etc., which tracks are you more optimistic about? What role will Gate.io play in this future?
Kevin Lee: Ten years is a very long time. My simple answer is AI. Now everyone is discussing the combination of "AI+Web3," but perhaps in ten years, these technologies will have become default configurations, just like Google and Baidu that we use every day, without specifically emphasizing "Internet+Payment".
Another interesting answer is that in 10 years, something we can't even imagine now will definitely emerge. If you asked me in a traditional financial bank what would exist in 10 years, I would say it would be the same things, with not much innovation.
But the crypto industry is different. Just like no one could predict the NFT boom in 2017, new tracks will definitely emerge in the future. I even think that these current popular concepts (Meme, DeFi, RWA) might not be mainstream in ten years - truly disruptive things are often born outside our line of sight and beyond our imagination.
As for Gate.io's role, our biggest advantage is "flexibility". Our transformation and new products are very quick. Whether it's AI, RWA, or unknown new tracks, as long as industry demand appears, Gate.io's technical team and product iteration speed can quickly catch up. This response speed is something others find hard to achieve, so we are also looking forward to seeing what the next 10 years will bring.
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