The Cryptonomist conducted an exclusive interview with Gracy Chan, managing director of Bitget, about the famous copy trading platform that is expanding fast in Europe.
Summary
Can you introduce yourself and your role at Bitget? When did you start working for the company?
I am Gracy Chen, managing director of Bitget, a global leading cryptocurrency exchange with futures trading and copy trading services as its key features.
Bitget was founded in 2018, and I’ve been at the helm since the beginning, leading the company to become one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world.
Before joining Bitget, Gracy held executive roles at XRSPACE, a VR technology company. During her time there, Gracy oversaw and led the marketing and business development functions, as well as government and public relations in the region.
Formerly an anchor and producer at Phoenix TV’s technology and finance channel, one of the largest media conglomerates in China, Chen has reported on financial news and events extensively, including the World Economic Forum.
During her time at Phoenix, she interviewed tech leaders, including Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired. Gracy was named a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum in 2015. A graduate of the National University of Singapore, and currently pursuing an MBA degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
How do you see the women’s role in crypto space?
Women have an important role to play in the crypto space, both as users and as creators of technology. Historically, the tech industry has been male-dominated, but there has been a shift towards greater gender diversity in recent years. However, there is still a long way to go to achieve true gender parity.
In the crypto space specifically, women are underrepresented as users and developers. This may be due to a variety of reasons, such as cultural and social barriers that discourage women from pursuing careers in technology. However, there are also many women who are actively involved in the crypto space and making important contributions.
It is important for the crypto community to actively work towards greater gender diversity and inclusion. This includes encouraging more women to enter the industry and creating a welcoming and supportive environment for them. It also involves recognizing and celebrating the contributions of women who are already involved in the space.
Can you explain more about the new Innovation Zone?
Recently, Bitget introduced Innovation Zone which offers users access to newly listed, innovative, and emerging digital assets and early-stage crypto projects.
This zone is designed to help users in their research process to uncover hidden gems within the vast number of tokens launching every day, and users can then decide which token suits their own portfolio the most, providing them with the opportunity to invest in potentially high-growth assets.
The exchange carefully selects projects that are innovative, have strong development teams, and demonstrate promising market potential.
At the meanwhile, the Innovation zone could help faciliate the whole blockchain ecosystem, as Bitget could support these innovative and promising projects with different kind of assistance such as KOL network, liquidity and community. Along with the launch of Innovation Zone, we also restart our launchpad, supporting quality blockchain startups in the long-term.
To ensure the security of users’ funds, Bitget conducts a thorough due diligence process on each project before listing it in the Innovation Zone. This includes evaluating the project’s whitepaper, team members, technology, community engagement, and legal compliance.
Overall, the Bitget Innovation Zone provides an opportunity for traders to access emerging crypto projects and potentially benefit from their growth, while also allowing innovative projects to gain exposure and funding through the Bitget exchange.
In addition, Bitget’s data has been included in the Coin360 Verified Exchange data dashboard, and plus connected its deposit and withdrawal data on the blockchain analytics platform, Nansen, allowing users to more easily verify the platform data, ensuring transparency and protection of the interests of both retail and institutional users.
What do you think about AI in crypto?
The prosperity of ChatGPT contributed to the increase of AI category token prices, such as FET, NMR, and others.
AI technology will play a non-negligible role in promoting blockchain infrastructure construction and more imaginative innovation and development in terms of computing power, data, graphics and many other fields.
What is more, Immutable CTO thought that OpenAI will lead to better art and narration in Web3 games. It is worth looking forward to how AI technology will affect the development of blockchain applications in the long-term future.
Artificial intelligence is foreseen to have a significant impact on the crypto industry and the potential to revolutionize the crypto industry in many ways. At Bitget, we like to be at the forefront of such technologies and want to offer our customers priority access to such innovative projects in our AI zone listings.
What do you think about NFTs?
Gaming wise, NFTs are on their way to becoming an integral part of GameFi and the entertainment market, particularly after the big push they received in 2022 from movie studios and record labels launching their own NFTs. The sector will therefore accelerate its development during 2023, as will the metaverse, which will receive special attention after big brands have begun to integrate their products and services into the metaverse.
Also, financial sector institutions such as stock exchanges, banks, and credit companies will provide their services to virtual users, which will entail some changes related to the regulation and control of activities in the metaverse.
For NFT marketplaces BLUR token has been the talk of the town. As a newcomer , they stand out from the other existing platforms mainly because of its excellent operation strategies and airdrop models. Blur’s airdrops encourage more users to actively place bids for the NFTs listed on the platform, which in return improves the liquidity of their NFTs. At the same time, zero market fee and their custom royalty feature have also shook the existing NFT market. Since Blur has shown high potential as a project, Bitget was amongst the first batch of exchanges to list the token in our NFT zone.
In my opinion, NFTs can be categorized as PFP, generative art, in-game assets, Soulbound Tokens, etc., but the most discussed ones are image NFTs (PFP). Holding a certain type of NFT can bring users a sense of belonging in a specific community, investment value, identity satisfaction, personality display and other different values.
Through NFT, a group of people with common hobbies can recognize themselves easily. This decentralized collaborative model greatly improves motivation and pride of being a part of the community, and with the continuous accumulation and growth of projects, new cultural narratives can usually be formed.
Bitget keeps eyes on the NFT marketplaces. With the continuous growth of the NFT trading volume, we predict NFT -related financial products will become more and more important in the future and we welcome cooperation on this end .
Can you talk to us more about copy trading? Why is Bitget pushing so much on this feature?
Copy trading is a feature we offer that allows users to automatically replicate the trades of elite traders. It now supports copy trading in the spot market, futures market, and copy a strategist.
Since its launch in May 2020, the copy trading feature on Bitget, has broken the mould of trading patterns in the crypto market, bridging the gap between traders from all corners of the world, in addition to elite traders and their fans.
The product has attracted more than 80,000 traders and more than 380,000 followers, and has developed a global network of more than 100,000 KOL.
There are several reasons why Bitget is pushing copy trading as a key feature of its platform, such as accessibility: Copy trading can make cryptocurrency trading more accessible to beginners and less experienced traders who may not have the time or knowledge to make trades on their own. By replicating the trades of elite traders, users can potentially benefit from their expertise and earn profits without having to invest significant time or effort.
Community building: Copy trading can help to build a sense of community among users, as successful traders can gain a following and recognition for their skills and expertise. This can also help to promote social trading and knowledge sharing among users.
Platform differentiation: Copy trading is a feature that sets Bitget apart from other cryptocurrency exchanges, which may help to attract new users and differentiate the platform in a crowded market.
Revenue generation: Copy trading can generate revenue for both the platform and successful traders, through fees and commissions. This can help to incentivize traders to share their expertise and make profitable trades.