Welcome to Slate Sundays, CryptoSlate’s weekly characteristic showcasing in-depth interviews, knowledgeable evaluation, and thought-provoking op-eds that transcend the headlines to discover the concepts and voices shaping the way forward for crypto.
Gracy Chen leaves fairly an impression. As the one feminine CEO among the many high 10 crypto exchanges, she’s properly conscious of the challenges going through girls leaders, and she or he’s decided to make use of her female wiles to her benefit. But, not like a few of her counterparts who yank up the step ladder on their method up, Gracy lifts as she climbs—half of Bitget’s administration staff is feminine. As she jokes:
“That’s like discovering a Bitcoin pockets that didn’t get misplaced in a boating accident—uncommon, however superb.”
Bursting into the Bitget for UNICEF press convention in Dubai, in a shiny blue UNICEF cap, her charisma lights up the room. There are two male representatives from UNICEF Luxembourg current, however their innovation lead, Sunita Grote, is unable to attend. Her journey plans have been disrupted by rising regional tensions. “You don’t typically get males protecting for ladies,” Gracy laughs, with a depraved glint in her eye.
Gracy’s humor is a robust weapon in her arsenal, and she or he makes use of it typically to place folks comfy, together with a showstopping smile and killer mind. Underestimate her at your peril. With an MBA from MIT with a GMAT rating within the high 1% of the nation, Gracy’s as sharp as a razor.
Beneath her management, she’s taken Bitget out of relative obscurity to turn into a number one alternate with the most important copy buying and selling platform and 120 million customers globally.
“My objective is to carry Bitget to a better degree, to accumulate extra customers, and to construct stronger partnerships,” she says.
Gracy Chen is a grasp in fundamental autonomy and a Michelin-starred chef
If Gracy’s chosen profession path is uncommon, her background is equally unconventional, rising up in Southwest China with a robust feminine position mannequin. She shares:
“I used to be so impressed by my mother, who was a single mom, but in addition an MBA. As a result of she was so busy along with her work and examine, at 9 years outdated, I used to be principally a Michelin-starred chef already. If a Michelin star means boiling instantaneous noodles with out burning the home down.”
She smiles:
“My childhood was very very like a mini MBA, the place MBA stands for Grasp of Primary Autonomy. Lesson one: if you need noodles, you higher be taught to prepare dinner them your self.”
Whereas her mom didn’t move on her culinary expertise, she did take Gracy to numerous eating places, and, having studied at the very best college within the area, she imparted three helpful classes:
“One: independence. Two: going after what you need. Three: how important it’s to get an training.”
Analysis has proven that educating girls and women is vital to bettering communities, Gracy explains, and even to growing a rustic’s GDP. “That’s why I used to be so excited to associate with UNICEF and be part of the Sport Changers’ Coalition,” she enthuses.
Gracy’s rewriting the foundations of inclusion in web3
The Sport Changers’ Coalition seeks to advance digital training and gender equality by empowering girls and women in blockchain and web3. Along with UNICEF, Bitget will present scholarships, mentorship, and academic applications to 300,000 individuals throughout eight creating nations, together with Morocco, India, and Cambodia, with a long-term objective of reaching 1.1 million folks throughout 12 nations by 2027.
The initiative emphasizes constructing foundational expertise, supporting women as creators within the digital financial system, and creating a world assist community. With such lofty objectives, Bitget isn’t doing issues by half, however then, I fairly doubt that Gracy would put her title on something much less.
“We all know that ladies are underrepresented in our crypto neighborhood, however we wish to rewrite the foundations of inclusion in web3. The Sport Changers’ Coalition is our subsequent step in doing that. If we wish to have true equality, it’s important that every one these girls are given alternatives to study this new and paradigm-shifting know-how. “
This isn’t Gracy’s first foray into mentoring and supporting girls. Bitget launched its Blockchain4her initiative, spearheaded by Gracy, in January 2024, which focuses on “elevating, empowering, educating, and embracing” girls and making ready them to take management roles. Amongst its inspiring ambassadors are Gracy’s good buddy, Solana President Lily Liu, and Lighting Labs’ founder and CEO, Elizabeth Stark.
If they’ll do it, you are able to do it: Why altering perceptions is vital
I inform Gracy a few reality I heard that ladies CEOs usually must undergo much more postings than their male counterparts, and that ladies in blockchain come up in opposition to further obstacles, corresponding to widespread misogyny and stereotyping. On a couple of event at a convention or aspect occasion, I’ve been mistaken for the girl serving drinks.
In fact, educating girls is a strong initiative, I say, however when obstacles like this exist, how else will we go about altering these lingering perceptions? She sits for a second in quiet thought earlier than answering:
“That’s undoubtedly one of many objectives of Blockchain4her. It’s about constructing feminine position fashions and altering folks’s views. We’ve got a protracted line of feminine ambassadors… We wish to arrange these examples for females to know you can be one in every of them… if they’ll do it, you are able to do it.”
She continues:
“The opposite factor about altering the mindset is, I truly say this rather a lot in varied panels, particularly after I’m in a panel with 5 totally different gents speaking about stablecoins or rules, or exchanges, or enterprise, et cetera. Folks ask me rather a lot: You’re a feminine CEO. How do you stability work and life? I’m like, why don’t you ask them? In addition they have a household. Why don’t you ask them the way to stability work and life? Issues like that about mindset altering are what we wish to work towards.”
Are there ever instances when Gracy feels she’s taken much less significantly as a feminine CEO or her opinion given much less weight?
“There is perhaps circumstances the place I’m not taken significantly, and in these circumstances, I don’t actually care. I’ll simply show myself and do the appropriate factor for me and the corporate. Additionally, there are particular different circumstances, particularly by way of advertising, the place being a lady turned a leverage, and a bonus.”
She offers the instance of a latest characteristic in Coindesk’s high 50 most influential girls in web3 and AI, among the many likes of Cathie Wooden and Cynthia Lummis. She shrugs:
“It simply offers me extra advertising alternatives. That’s what I imply by saying being a lady on this trade is each a blessing and a curse.”
Past the Arctic and Antarctica: Bitget’s quest for international progress
Gracy began at Bitget in 2022 as Managing Director and was promoted to CEO in Could 2024. I ask what imaginative and prescient she dropped at Bitget and what her targets have been approaching as CEO:
“My imaginative and prescient, and in addition a part of the founding staff’s and better government staff’s imaginative and prescient, was to carry the 2022 model of Bitget to a extra international platform.”
As a China-born alternate, Gracy was one of many “only a few” executives who spoke fluent English, and her position as Managing Director was to raise the Bitget model picture and affect globally. She affirms:
“At this time, we’re certainly a world alternate. We serve greater than 100 nations. Our personal staff come from greater than 42 totally different nations, and passport holders, and we now have groups on each single continent aside from the Arctic and Antarctica.”
She unlocks her telephone and holds it up. “Right here,” she says, “I can simply shortly present you.” I’m a display screen with the clock faces of a number of locations. She says:
“I actually have Los Angeles all the way in which coated to Auckland in New Zealand. So I must know the place everyone seems to be and if I must have a gathering with them, what’s their time zone, what’s my time zone? Issues like which are a great way of how international we’re.”
That is the primary time I’ve come throughout a CEO or founder who gave a flying hoot about what time they known as their staff, or who didn’t outsource this process to their EAs. Seems, brains, wit, and respect for her fellow people. I believe I’m creating somewhat crush. She continues:
“Now, am I happy with all the outcomes? Are we international sufficient? I believe there are nonetheless methods to work and to enhance.”
A case-by-case foundation to raised serve institutional purchasers
Past onboarding worldwide customers and staff, a large chunk of Bitget’s progress this yr is pushed by establishments. Gracy says:
“I’m in conversations with a number of market makers, VCs, some tokenized cash market funds, and all the assorted institutional partnerships we’re constructing. At this time, we’re extra centered on the institutional aspect as a result of we have been lagging by way of institutional purchasers, perhaps earlier than final yr.”
If Bitget was lagging within the institutional race, the alternate has shortly caught up: 80% of Bitget’s spot quantity now comes from this group, and 80% of crypto quant companies are utilizing Bitget to commerce. What attracts them to the platform particularly, and the way does this affect the corporate’s strategy?
“This afternoon, truly, I want to fulfill native regulators to speak about us getting totally different licenses. Dubai is one area. Truly, it’s not simply Dubai, it’s additionally Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, totally different nations and jurisdictions we’re to have conversations or we’ve had some conversations.”
She says that Bitget has modified its technique to accommodate institutional purchasers in a number of methods, however “compliance is unquestionably one in every of them.” Bitget can be rolling out steady updates and tooling, corresponding to unified buying and selling accounts, to make institutional purchasers really feel at house.
“Institutional purchasers want extra dashboards. They want larger, sooner strains. In any other case, they simply don’t wish to be part of you. Unified buying and selling accounts is a brand new product we’re launching with the intention to higher serve our institutional VIP purchasers.”
Since no two purchasers’ wants are equal, Bitget takes its institutional strategy on a case-by-case foundation. Gracy explains:
“Even when they’re all market makers, they’ve totally different preferences. Some need this, some need that. So what we do is rather like working a restaurant, we give them a menu and so they can select this and that.”
She smiles as she returns to a restaurant analogy, a enterprise she seems to know properly and thinks fondly of from her days boiling noodles and shadowing the footsteps of her superhero mother. I wish to ask if that’s the place Gracy could be if she hadn’t fallen down the crypto rabbithole, however I do know she doesn’t have a lot time, and we transfer on swiftly as an alternative.
Regulation, market cycles, and ballooning M2 provide
With a change of guard in Washington and a groundswell of assist for crypto, we flip the dialog stateside. Crypto companies have been frozen out of Fortress America for much too lengthy, however with the most important financial system on this planet nonetheless leagues forward of China and a crypto adoption fee round 28%, does Bitget plan to pursue this profitable market now? Gracy pauses and measures her response.
“We’ve got given numerous thought to serving the U.S. jurisdiction, perhaps beginning with a sure group of customers. However to date, we haven’t determined whether or not we’ll enter the U.S. market. I don’t see that coming quickly. Even when the U.S. is changing into extra crypto-friendly, passing the stablecoin invoice… rules round exchanges are nonetheless sort of cooking, and we will’t make any resolution primarily based on assumption or hypothesis.”
And what are Gracy’s ideas in the marketplace at this time? With Bitcoin grinding slowly up, then buying and selling sideways, and altcoins notably trailing, are we in a bull or a bear? For that matter, are we even in a standard cycle, or does Gracy subscribe to the supercycle thesis?
“My private opinion is that we don’t have the four-year bull-bear market anymore. We’re in a supercycle, and this supercycle is basically pushed by macroeconomic components, together with M2 provide, like quantitative easing, and totally different fiscal and financial insurance policies around the globe, particularly within the U.S., Europe, and China.”
With U.S. M2 provide sustaining its agency trajectory of up and to the appropriate, I assume meaning Gracy expects Bitcoin’s worth to considerably rise. She nods her head:
“For my part, you recognize, $100K, at this time’s Bitcoin worth, continues to be a superb buy worth or entry worth for many who don’t have any Bitcoin. I believe we’re in a supercycle. However supercycle for Bitcoin doesn’t imply supercycle for altcoins.”
Past Ethereum, Solana, and “perhaps another cash,” Gracy says it’s not as straightforward because it was once to boost capital and construct a mission that draws and retains a significant person base.
“The very small cash are seeing a number of issues proper now, particularly the older tasks which have been listed on many exchanges, however the mission staff shouldn’t be doing very properly… At this time, it’s a lot more durable as a result of you actually need to construct an acceptable product and have a number of customers. And I believe that could be a more healthy method of individuals getting into this trade.”
Wanting forward: What’s developing on Bitget’s horizon?
Past partaking with regulators and rising its worldwide and institutional base, what else is within the pipeline for Bitget?
“We’re not simply constructing an alternate,” Gracy insists, “we’re extra all in favour of the way to serve our customers higher. What are their wants by way of buying and selling? What are their wants by way of day by day actions? So we’re embedding rather a lot round PayFi.”
PayFi is Bitget Pockets’s blockchain-based initiative to simplify crypto and real-world funds and financing by integrating DeFi and real-world property (RWAs). Gracy explains:
“What we see proper now’s, all the worldwide bank card networks have nearly a 3% to six% value per transaction that’s taken from merchandise and from the retail customers, and generally it takes three to 4 days to simply settle a world transaction. So a number of effectivity, and cash, and time may be saved in these transactions by stablecoins and PayFi.”
She’s fast so as to add that Bitget will, “after all,” comply with all the required procedures, together with Anti-Cash Laundering (AML), Know Your Buyer (KYC), and Know Your Enterprise (KYB). She provides:
“One other factor we’re working laborious on is AI; the way to have AI bots and utilizing AI to streamline a few of our companies to detect fraud, or to serve our customers for efficiencies, these types of issues. So, AI and PayFi are a few of the companies that we’re extra all in favour of.”
Gracy has to fulfill with one other journalist earlier than her afternoon appointments, however she’s not too busy to insist on a photograph with me in entrance of Lionel Messi’s signed soccer shirt with the Bitget brand embossed on the entrance.
I ponder if this kind of interplay comes naturally to Gracy or whether or not she’s needed to work at it; and, for that matter, whether or not she’s needed to work at it twice as laborious as a person. She replies:
“Being a lady is who I’m and what I used to be born with. I don’t actually care what folks consider me. It’s extra about what’s the appropriate factor and the way to carry this firm ahead.”
