Interview: Tong, PANews
Editor: Zen, PANews
During TOKEN2049 2026, PANews had a conversation with Xie Jiayin, Head of Greater China at Bitget.
This year marks both the eighth anniversary of Bitget's founding and Xie Jiayin's eighth year in the crypto industry. From an industry newcomer at the beginning to a senior executive at an exchange today, he has experienced multiple cycles of change in the crypto market and witnessed Bitget's development from an emerging exchange to what it is now.
Shortly before the interview, Bitget experienced its only security incident in eight years at the end of September. How the incident was handled, along with accountability and responsibility, also became the first topic discussed in this conversation.
In addition, around Bitget's ongoing Universal Exchange (UEX) strategy, Xie Jiayin shared progress in trading traditional financial assets such as U.S. stocks, gold, and foreign exchange, as well as the changes new products have brought to the user structure.
From career growth and user service to product innovation and future plans, the main contents of this interview are as follows:
Responding to the security incident: Trust must be earned through action
PANews: Over the past two weeks, you and your team must have been very busy. At the end of September, Bitget experienced a security incident, and now the matter has been settled. How was the entire incident handled? Did it have any impact on Bitget?
Xie Jiayin: Frankly speaking, this was our only security incident in eight years. I think the overall handling plan this time was relatively timely.
First of all, I said right away that Bitget is a platform that takes responsibility, and everyone does not need to worry. As for users' assets, Bitget opened withdrawals for everyone. Only on the first day did users withdraw coins; starting from the second day, many assets had already flowed back one after another.
Trust is never taken for granted; it needs to be earned through action again and again. Since users have chosen to trust Bitget, you have to find a way to catch and hold on to that trust.
So this crisis is not necessarily a bad thing for us. I have always believed that a crisis cannot end a platform, but taking responsibility can instead redefine a platform.
It is like a ship sailing in the ocean; only after being tested by strong winds and waves can it prove that it is sturdy enough.
Actually, I have also been telling friends that I have ambition, and Bitget has ambition too. This year is my eighth year in the industry and also Bitget's eighth anniversary.
Eight years of career growth: From executor to manager, passing the platform's trust on to users
PANews: You and Bitget have both gone through eight years in the Crypto industry. Looking back now at your growth along the way, what changes do you think there have been in your mindset, and what have you gained?
Xie Jiayin: I think one of the bigger shifts is from once being an executor to now being a manager. When I first entered the industry eight years ago, I was still a "workplace rookie." But after eight years of tempering, I have forged myself into a "body that cannot be harmed," able to withstand pressure and also lead the team forward.
Whether it is me or Bitget, we are both moving from proving ourselves to expressing ourselves. I think this is a very good shift, and it also shows that the brand is becoming stronger and stronger and has gained recognition from more users.
PANews: I think Jiayin has now become a calling card for Bitget.
Xie Jiayin: This is mutually reinforcing; the platform made me. Frankly speaking, without Bitget, there would be no me today.
We should not mistake the platform for our own ability. I can only say that I am someone pushed to the front on behalf of Bitget's more than 2,100 employees. It is not that I am so impressive, but because the platform is strong enough that others think Xie Jiayin is impressive enough.
Bitget gave me a very good stage and also gave me a very solid backing.
PANews: Many friends should know your previous story. You once shared on social media how you went from being a child from an ordinary rural family to where you are today, step by step. Do these growth experiences and the process of striving in the workplace make it easier for you to understand users and feel empathy when serving them?
Xie Jiayin: Of course they do. I have always said that I come from the masses, and now I have returned to the masses.
Although I am now a senior executive at Bitget, I am still willing to bring service to the masses and deliver it to everyone.
Therefore, I will require the team to serve all customers, whether VIP customers, ordinary customers, or channels and other partners. We all need to respond quickly and solve problems quickly.
Users' trust in you is accumulated slowly through little things. It is not that if you suddenly give them a gift box one day, they will like you. Rather, it depends on whether you can truly help users solve problems.
Because I myself come from a very ordinary family, and I also understand how difficult it is for ordinary people to fulfill some dreams or solve some problems, because I have experienced these processes myself.
So, because I have been caught in the rain myself, I want to hold an umbrella for others.
PANews: I remember one case where a user may have deposited the wrong coin. Although the amount was not necessarily large, you still mobilized many resources to help him solve the problem. There should be quite a few situations like this, right?
Xie Jiayin: Very many. Over these eight years, we have helped users recover assets and have never charged any fees.
Yesterday, a client deposited the wrong gold asset, worth about $160,000, onto another chain, and we happened not to have that chain enabled.
In the end, we set up a group and organized a collaborative team of eight people, and it took about 30 minutes to help him solve the problem.
Similar things happen often, so I also keep reminding everyone that when depositing, you must look carefully and choose the right network.
UEX Universal Exchange: From Crypto to U.S. stocks, gold, and foreign exchange
PANews: Bitget is a relatively fast-paced team, and the crypto industry itself changes very quickly. Policy regulation, market conditions, and user needs change almost every day. This poses a great challenge to your work. Do you feel anxious? And how do you deal with this anxiety?
Xie Jiayin: I think anxiety is phased.
Frankly speaking, sometimes when we see others launch some feature or product, we also feel anxious. But we have also made others anxious before.
When UEX was launched in September last year, I could clearly feel that peers also began to feel anxious.
So anxiety is inevitable. We need to continuously polish our products and continuously innovate. Because the times have changed, users have changed, and if you still do not change, you can only fall behind.
We have been overturning some past playbooks. Some mature playbooks and successful experiences from the past may no longer be very applicable now, nor very applicable to the future.
PANews: You just mentioned UEX, and I think this is also a relatively forward-looking judgment by your team. Why did you lay out these changes a year in advance at that time? After this strategy was implemented, what impact did it have on Bitget's users and market business?
Xie Jiayin: This is a very interesting thing.
In September last year, when we announced that we wanted to build UEX, the Universal Exchange, many people thought this was something unlikely to be achieved, or thought it was too complex and too distant.
Some people would think that as an exchange, you should just do a good job in Crypto and not go into U.S. stocks, nor touch businesses like gold, foreign exchange, and silver.
But I believe our strategy must always stay ahead of market peers by more than half a year. As an exchange, we need to continuously provide users with trading opportunities.
In September last year, Bitget launched its U.S. stock trading business, initially providing related services by integrating with Ondo. Subsequently, in response to user feedback on operational experience issues, we began developing the tokenized U.S. stock protocol Reality at the end of December the same year. This system directly connects to the liquidity of Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, improving trade execution efficiency while also supporting direct dividend receipt.
Thanks to this liquidity access mechanism, Bitget's rToken is highly competitive in terms of liquidity. After the new system went live, the highest single-day trading volume of the U.S. stock business reached $10 billion. However, trading activity is still affected by market conditions. When the U.S. stock market performs weakly, related trading volume also declines accordingly.
On January 5 this year, we also launched gold, foreign exchange, and silver businesses, integrating with MT5.
At present, Bitget's CFD business in gold, foreign exchange, and other areas has already reached considerable scale. Even compared with traditional foreign exchange trading platforms, it has reached the upper-middle level of the industry.
In U.S. stocks, our U.S. stock derivatives have already accounted for 19.5%, making us the world's second-largest U.S. stock derivatives market, second only to Binance.
PANews: From the user perspective, what you have observed is whether existing Crypto users have begun to shift toward traditional financial assets, or whether providing trading channels for these traditional assets has also attracted new users to Bitget?
Xie Jiayin: Actually, both.About two months ago this year, we did a tally and found that among the new users registered this year, one out of every four new users was trading U.S. stocks and forex.
We have indeed attracted some users from the traditional forex market and the U.S. stock market, but it has not yet reached the scale I imagined, so we still need to keep working hard.
A few years ago, Bitget did not have a C2C business. In order to expand into more markets, we also launched the C2C feature, and we need to provide everyone with an entry point.
From dark horse to top exchange: product innovation, user service, and long-termism
PANews: This year is Bitget's eighth anniversary. In the crypto industry, eight years is a very difficult journey. Bitget has gone from being a dark horse exchange back then to now ranking among the top. What do you think are the main reasons it has been able to grow rapidly and build its own competitive moat?
Xie Jiayin: First is the product. We have indeed led the market in terms of products, and we were also the world's first platform to launch copy trading.
We are able to identify user needs and also anticipate what products users may want.
In addition, I hope users can see Bitget people anywhere and feel a sense of security. When they want to find someone from Bitget, they can find them at any time.
There is also Bitget's transparency, including asset transparency and proof of reserves. We disclose it externally every month, and the proof of reserves at the end of September was 131%.
In the process of running an exchange, I think what matters more is long-termism.
We need to maintain reverence for products, the market, and users, while continuously refining our own products, so that we can be more competitive.
Future goal: Make Bitget one of the three choices for Chinese-speaking users
PANews: Standing at the milestone of Bitget's eighth anniversary and looking ahead, what are Bitget's next goals and vision? What role do you hope to play in this process?
Xie Jiayin: Frankly speaking, my own goal is to make Bitget one of the three choices for Chinese-speaking users.
This is one of my goals, to enable users to truly recognize Bitget.
PANews: So in terms of personal development, what are your plans going forward?
Xie Jiayin: I want to help the team do better and help them grow.
I hope everyone on the team can do better than me, because only if they keep growing can the platform develop better.
PANews: Finally, one more question. If I were an outsider and a complete beginner today, and you wanted to recommend Bitget to me, how would you introduce it?
Xie Jiayin: I would tell him that Bitget is a one-stop financial operating platform.
Here you can not only trade U.S. stocks and Hong Kong stocks, but also trade gold and Crypto, and carry out global asset allocation. This is a very good choice.