During TOKEN2049 in 2026, PANews sat down with Xie Jiayin, Bitget’s head of Greater China, for a wide-ranging interview on the exchange’s late-September security incident, the progress of its Universal Exchange, or UEX, strategy, and the company’s goals as it marks its eighth anniversary.
This year is both Bitget’s eighth year in operation and Xie’s eighth year in the crypto industry. Shortly before the interview, Bitget went through what Xie described as the only security incident in the platform’s eight-year history, making that issue the first topic on the agenda.
Security incident response: trust has to be earned through action
Xie said the incident was handled in a timely way. He recalled saying at the time that Bitget was “a platform that takes responsibility” and that users did not need to worry. To protect user assets, the exchange allowed withdrawals after the event.
According to Xie, users withdrew funds on the first day, but by the second day many assets had already started returning. He said trust is never automatic and has to be won again and again through action. In his words, if users choose to trust Bitget, the company has to find a way to live up to that trust.
Xie argued that the episode was not necessarily a bad thing for the exchange. “A crisis cannot end a platform. Responsibility can redefine one,” he said. He compared the company to a ship at sea, saying only rough weather can show whether it is truly strong enough.
He added that both he and Bitget have “ambition,” noting that this year marks his eighth year in the sector and Bitget’s eighth anniversary.
Eight years in crypto: from executor to manager
Looking back on his own development, Xie said one of the biggest shifts has been moving from an executor to a manager. When he entered the industry eight years ago, he described himself as a newcomer to the workplace. After years of pressure and experience, he said he is now able to withstand stress and lead a team forward.
He said both he and Bitget have moved from trying to prove themselves to expressing themselves, a change he sees as a sign that the brand has grown stronger and gained broader recognition from users.
When PANews said Xie had become one of Bitget’s public faces, he replied that the relationship works both ways. “The platform made me,” he said. “Frankly, without Bitget, there would be no me today.”
He also stressed that people should not mistake the platform for an individual’s own ability. Xie said he is simply the person put forward to represent Bitget’s more than 2,100 employees. “It’s not that I’m that impressive. It’s that the platform is strong enough, so people think Xie Jiayin is impressive.”
On whether his own background affects the way he serves users, Xie said it does. He said he came from ordinary circumstances and still sees himself as someone who returns to the broader public, even as a senior executive. That is why he wants service to reach everyone.
He said the expectation inside Bitget is that the team must respond quickly and solve problems quickly for all clients, whether they are VIPs, retail users, channel partners or other business partners. In his view, trust is built through many small moments, not through one-off gifts, and what matters is whether the platform can actually solve a user’s problem.
Xie said he comes from an ordinary family and understands how difficult it can be for ordinary people to fulfill ambitions or fix practical problems. “I’ve been caught in the rain myself, so I want to hold up an umbrella for others,” he said.
User support cases: recovering mis-sent assets without charging fees
PANews brought up a common situation in crypto operations: users sending the wrong asset or using the wrong network. Xie said such cases are very common.
Over the past eight years, he said, Bitget has never charged users to help recover assets. He gave one recent example from the day before the interview. A client had sent a gold-related asset worth about $160,000 to another chain that Bitget had not enabled.
Xie said the company created a group on the spot and formed an eight-person working team. The issue was resolved in about 30 minutes. He said similar situations happen often and used the example to remind users to check the network carefully before making a deposit.
UEX strategy: moving from crypto into U.S. stocks, gold and forex
Asked about the speed of change in crypto and the pressure that comes with it, Xie said anxiety comes in phases. At times, he said, Bitget sees competitors release new features or products and feels pressure. But he added that Bitget has also created that pressure for others. When Bitget launched UEX in September last year, he said, he could clearly feel rivals becoming anxious.
That, in his view, is inevitable. The company has to keep refining products and keep innovating because the times have changed and users have changed. If the platform does not change, it will fall behind. He said some strategies and successful methods from the past may no longer fit the present or the future.
Xie said that when Bitget announced its UEX “panoramic exchange” strategy in September last year, many people thought it would be too difficult or too far away to execute. Some believed an exchange should simply focus on crypto rather than expand into U.S. stocks, gold, forex or silver.
His view was different. Bitget’s strategy, he said, should stay at least half a year ahead of competitors, and an exchange needs to keep offering users new trading opportunities.
He said Bitget launched U.S. stock trading in September last year, initially by integrating Ondo. After hearing user feedback on the trading experience, the company began developing its tokenized U.S. stock protocol, Reality, in late December of the same year.
According to Xie, the system connects directly to liquidity from Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, improves execution efficiency and supports direct dividend distribution. Thanks to that liquidity access model, he said, Bitget’s rToken products have become competitive on liquidity.
After the new system went live, daily trading volume in the U.S. equity segment reached as much as $10 billion, he said. He added that activity still depends on market conditions and tends to fall when the U.S. stock market is weak.
Xie also said Bitget launched gold, forex and silver products on Jan. 5 this year through MT5.
He described Bitget’s contracts for difference, or CFD, business in gold and forex as already reaching considerable scale. Compared with traditional forex trading platforms, he said, Bitget has reached the middle-to-upper tier of the industry.
On the U.S. stock side, Xie said Bitget’s U.S. stock derivatives business now accounts for 19.5%, making it the world’s second-largest U.S. stock derivatives market behind Binance.
User mix: one in four new users traded U.S. stocks or forex
PANews asked whether the new offerings mainly encouraged existing crypto users to trade traditional financial products, or whether they brought in fresh users from outside crypto.
Xie said both are happening. Based on a count done around two months ago, he said, one out of every four new users registered this year has traded U.S. stocks or forex.
He said Bitget has indeed attracted some users from the traditional forex and U.S. equity markets, though not yet at the scale he had hoped for, which means more work remains.
Xie also noted that Bitget did not have a C2C business in earlier years. To expand into more markets, the platform later launched a C2C function to give users an entry point.
From dark horse to major exchange: product, service and transparency
Asked why Bitget was able to grow from a dark-horse exchange into a top-tier platform, Xie pointed first to product development. He said Bitget was ahead of the market on product and was the first platform globally to launch copy trading.
He said the company has been able to identify what users need and anticipate what they may want next.
Beyond product, Xie emphasized visibility and service. He wants users to be able to see Bitget staff wherever they are and feel secure. If users want to reach someone from Bitget, he said, they should be able to do so at any time.
Transparency was another point he highlighted, including asset transparency and proof of reserves. Bitget discloses the data every month, he said, and its proof of reserves stood at 131% at the end of September.
For Xie, though, running an exchange comes down to long-term commitment. The company has to maintain respect for its products, the market and its users, while continuing to study and refine what it builds.
Next target: become one of the top three choices for Chinese-speaking users
At Bitget’s eight-year milestone, Xie said his goal is for Bitget to become one of the top three choices for Chinese-speaking users. “That’s one of my goals — to have users truly recognize Bitget,” he said.
On his own future role, he said he wants to help the team do better and keep growing. He added that he hopes everyone on the team can do better than he does, because the platform can only develop further if its people continue to improve.
At the end of the interview, PANews asked how he would introduce Bitget to someone completely new to the industry. Xie said he would describe Bitget as a one-stop financial operating platform.
There, he said, users can trade not only U.S. and Hong Kong stocks, but also gold and crypto, allowing them to build global asset allocation on one platform. “It’s a very good choice,” he said.