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 prime 10 crypto exchanges, she’s effectively conscious of the challenges dealing with girls leaders, and he or she’s decided to make use of her female wiles to her benefit. But, in contrast to a few of her counterparts who yank up the step ladder on their manner up, Gracy lifts as she climbs—half of Bitget’s administration group 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 brilliant 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 overlaying for girls,” Gracy laughs, with a depraved glint in her eye.
Gracy’s humor is a strong weapon in her arsenal, and he or she makes use of it typically to place individuals comfortable, together with a showstopping smile and killer mind. Underestimate her at your peril. With an MBA from MIT with a GMAT rating within the prime 1% of the nation, Gracy’s as sharp as a razor.
Below her management, she’s taken Bitget out of relative obscurity to turn out to be a number one alternate with the most important copy buying and selling platform and 120 million customers globally.
“My aim is to convey Bitget to the next degree, to amass extra customers, and to construct stronger partnerships,” she says.
Gracy Chen is a grasp in primary 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 As a result of she was so busy along with her work and examine, at 9 years outdated, I used to be mainly a Michelin-starred chef already. If a Michelin star means boiling on the spot noodles with out burning the home down.”
She smiles:
“My childhood was very very similar to a mini MBA, the place MBA stands for Grasp of Fundamental Autonomy. Lesson one: if you would like noodles, you higher study to prepare dinner them your self.”
Whereas her mom didn’t go on her culinary abilities, she did take Gracy to a number of eating places, and, having studied at the perfect 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 ladies 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 principles of inclusion in web3
The Sport Changers’ Coalition seeks to advance digital training and gender equality by empowering girls and ladies in blockchain and web3. Along with UNICEF, Bitget will present scholarships, mentorship, and academic packages to 300,000 individuals throughout eight creating nations, together with Morocco, India, and Cambodia, with a long-term aim of reaching 1.1 million individuals throughout 12 nations by 2027.
The initiative emphasizes constructing foundational abilities, supporting ladies as creators within the digital financial system, and creating a worldwide help community. With such lofty objectives, Bitget isn’t doing issues by half, however then, I relatively doubt that Gracy would put her title on something much less.
“We all know that girls are underrepresented in our crypto group, however we need to rewrite the principles of inclusion in web3. The Sport Changers’ Coalition is our subsequent step in doing that. If we need to have true equality, it’s important that every one these girls are given alternatives to find out about 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 getting ready them to take management roles. Amongst its inspiring ambassadors are Gracy’s good good friend, Solana President Lily Liu, and Lighting Labs’ founder and CEO, Elizabeth Stark.
If they will do it, you are able to do it: Why altering perceptions is vital
I inform Gracy a couple of reality I heard that girls CEOs usually should undergo much more postings than their male counterparts, and that girls in blockchain come up in opposition to extra obstacles, similar to widespread misogyny and stereotyping. On multiple event at a convention or aspect occasion, I’ve been mistaken for the woman serving drinks.
In fact, educating girls is a stable initiative, I say, however when obstacles like this exist, how else can 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 individuals’s views. We have now a protracted line of feminine ambassadors… We need to arrange these examples for females to know which you could be certainly one of them… if they will do it, you are able to do it.”
She continues:
“The opposite factor about altering the mindset is, I really say this so much in varied panels, particularly once I’m in a panel with 5 completely different gents speaking about stablecoins or laws, or exchanges, or enterprise, et cetera. Folks ask me so much: You’re a feminine CEO. How do you steadiness work and life? I’m like, why don’t you ask them? Additionally they have a household. Why don’t you ask them find out how to steadiness work and life? Issues like that about mindset altering are what we need 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 may be 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 precise factor for me and the corporate. Additionally, there are particular different circumstances, particularly when it comes to advertising and marketing, the place being a girl turned a leverage, and a bonus.”
She provides the instance of a latest characteristic in Coindesk’s prime 50 most influential girls in web3 and AI, among the many likes of Cathie Wooden and Cynthia Lummis. She shrugs:
“It simply provides me extra advertising and marketing alternatives. That’s what I imply by saying being a girl on this business 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 aims have been approaching as CEO:
“My imaginative and prescient, and in addition a part of the founding group’s and better govt group’s imaginative and prescient, was to convey 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 worldwide alternate. We serve greater than 100 nations. Our personal workers come from greater than 42 completely different nations, and passport holders, and we’ve groups on each single continent apart from the Arctic and Antarctica.”
She unlocks her telephone and holds it up. “Right here,” she says, “I can simply rapidly present you.” I’m taking a look at a display with the clock faces of a number of locations. She says:
“I actually have Los Angeles all the way in which lined 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 might be a great way of taking a look at 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 referred to as their workers, or who didn’t outsource this process to their EAs. Appears to be like, brains, wit, and respect for her fellow people. I feel I’m creating slightly crush. She continues:
“Now, am I happy with all the outcomes? Are we international sufficient? I feel there are nonetheless methods to work and to enhance.”
A case-by-case foundation to higher serve institutional shoppers
Past onboarding worldwide customers and workers, a large chunk of Bitget’s progress this yr is pushed by establishments. Gracy says:
“I’m in conversations with numerous 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 when it comes to institutional shoppers, possibly earlier than final yr.”
If Bitget was lagging within the institutional race, the alternate has rapidly caught up: 80% of Bitget’s spot quantity now comes from this group, and 80% of crypto quant corporations are utilizing Bitget to commerce. What attracts them to the platform particularly, and the way does this affect the corporate’s strategy?
“This afternoon, really, I would like to satisfy native regulators to speak about us getting completely different licenses. Dubai is one area. Truly, it’s not simply Dubai, it’s additionally Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, completely different nations and jurisdictions we’re taking a look at to have conversations or we’ve had some conversations.”
She says that Bitget has modified its technique to accommodate institutional shoppers in a number of methods, however “compliance is certainly certainly one of them.” Bitget can also be rolling out steady updates and tooling, similar to unified buying and selling accounts, to make institutional shoppers really feel at house.
“Institutional shoppers want extra dashboards. They want increased, quicker traces. In any other case, they simply don’t need to be part of you. Unified buying and selling accounts is a brand new product we’re launching in an effort to higher serve our institutional VIP shoppers.”
Since no two shoppers’ 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 completely 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 grasp effectively and thinks fondly of from her days boiling noodles and shadowing the footsteps of her superhero mother. I need to ask if that’s the place Gracy can 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 a substitute.
Regulation, market cycles, and ballooning M2 provide
With a change of guard in Washington and a groundswell of help for crypto, we flip the dialog stateside. Crypto companies have been frozen out of Fortress America for a lot 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 have now given a number of thought to serving the U.S. jurisdiction, possibly 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… laws round exchanges are nonetheless sort of cooking, and we are able to’t make any choice primarily based on assumption or hypothesis.”
And what are Gracy’s ideas in the marketplace as we speak? 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 essentially pushed by macroeconomic components, together with M2 provide, like quantitative easing, and completely different fiscal and financial insurance policies all over the world, particularly within the U.S., Europe, and China.”
With U.S. M2 provide sustaining its agency trajectory of up and to the precise, I assume which means Gracy expects Bitcoin’s value to considerably rise. She nods her head:
“For my part, , $100K, as we speak’s Bitcoin value, continues to be a very good buy value or entry value for individuals who don’t have any Bitcoin. I feel we’re in a supercycle. However supercycle for Bitcoin doesn’t imply supercycle for altcoins.”
Past Ethereum, Solana, and “possibly 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 numerous issues proper now, particularly the older tasks which have been listed on many exchanges, however the mission group isn’t doing very effectively… At this time, it’s a lot tougher as a result of you really want to construct an applicable product and have numerous customers. And I feel that could be a more healthy manner of individuals getting into this business.”
Trying forward: What’s arising on Bitget’s horizon?
Past participating 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 desirous about find out how to serve our customers higher. What are their wants when it comes to buying and selling? What are their wants when it comes to each day actions? So we’re embedding so much 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 could be, all the worldwide bank card networks have virtually 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 worldwide transaction. So numerous effectivity, and cash, and time could 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 exhausting on is AI; find out how to have AI bots and utilizing AI to streamline a few of our providers to detect fraud, or to serve our customers for efficiencies, these kinds of issues. So, AI and PayFi are a number of the companies that we’re extra desirous about.”
Gracy has to satisfy 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 emblem embossed on the entrance.
I’m wondering if such a 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 exhausting as a person. She replies:
“Being a girl is who I’m and what I used to be born with. I don’t actually care what individuals consider me. It’s extra about what’s the precise factor and find out how to convey this firm ahead.”
Talked about on this article
