Editor: WuBlockchain
This WuBlockchain Podcast episode features a dialogue with Gate.io founder Lin Han, focusing on the crypto market cycle, the impact of US stocks and macroeconomics, the AI bubble debate, the privacy track, compliance and regulation, exchange Proof of Reserves (PoR) mechanisms, the rise of Perp DEXs, stablecoin competition, market making and market manipulation, the difficulty of entrepreneurship in the industry, and Gate's strategic layout.
Lin Han believes that although the current market has fluctuations, it is difficult to return to the major bear markets of the past; macroeconomic and liquidity policies will continue to influence the market; AI is still in its early growth stage and cannot be simply viewed as a bubble; Web3 user behavior is significantly migrating on-chain; privacy and zero-knowledge proof will become important infrastructure in the future; regulatory intervention in CEXs and DeFi will gradually deepen; the explosion of Perp DEXs stems from matured infrastructure, reduced costs, and enhanced incentive mechanisms, and all CEXs will comprehensively layout in the future; the stablecoin track will show a long-term effect; phenomena like DAT and market manipulation exist but have limited space; Gate will continue to strengthen the construction of compliant stations, Web3 layout, infrastructure investment, and maintain a long-term, steady talent strategy and work style.
Has the Bear Market Arrived?
Colin: The overall market environment has now reached a turning point. Many people have questions about the so-called bull-bear transition: some think the bear market is coming, while others believe that because the AI industry is still developing rapidly, AI might drive US stocks, which in turn could drive risk assets to continue rising. Everyone seems to be at a turning point, unsure of the direction. Based on your years of experience, could you share your views on the current market situation?
Lin Han: We've experienced bull-bear transitions too many times; we've been running an exchange for almost 13 years. The crypto circle often talks about a four-year cycle (Bitcoin halving), but from my observation, it's not like that; there's no inevitable pattern. In the early days, the crypto circle was very small and was indeed greatly affected by BTC halvings. Before each halving, people would FOMO in advance, expecting that after the halving, the reduced production would mean less selling pressure and prices would rise. So back then, the halving had a significant impact on the market. But it's different now. Most Bitcoin has already been produced, the new supply reduction from halvings is very limited, and the impact is minimal.
Moreover, the crypto circle has now integrated into the global macroeconomy; it's no longer a small internal cycle. So it is more influenced by US stocks and the global economy. Bulls and bears are more like part of the macro cycle, not driven solely by the crypto circle itself.
Looking back at the last obvious bull-bear switch, it was probably the DeFi Summer in 2020, which was driven internally by the industry. But by 2022, after the pandemic, the global economy was hit, and the crypto circle immediately cooled down. At that time, even internet giants and Web3 companies started layoffs; the entire economy suddenly cooled.
2022 and 2023 were relatively cold, until the end of 2023 when, driven by ETFs and economic recovery, the market started heating up again. 2024 was very active overall, and early 2025 was also booming, with BTC price breaking through $100,000 to set a new high. Later, Trump taking office further drove economic recovery. This year's overall performance is not worse than 2024's, with good economic growth. The industry remained at a high level from June to October. Although there were reports in November saying trading volume fell to its lowest since June, from our platform data, the drop wasn't significant; it's still very good compared to bear market periods.
So I think it's difficult now to suddenly enter a sharp crash or deep bear market like before. Even if it drops from $100,000-$120,000 to $80,000-$90,000, that price is still considered high.
From a more macro perspective, the US economy is still performing well, and US stocks are strong. Many views suggest that new quantitative easing and large-scale capital injection may occur in December or next year, the US dollar may weaken, and asset prices overall will benefit, including stocks and crypto assets. The market already has expectations for this.
Optimistic About the Foreseeable Market Outlook?
Colin: So, based on your and your internal team's judgment, in the foreseeable future, including next quarter and first half of the year, due to monetary easing policies, the market will most likely remain relatively optimistic, right?
Lin Han: Yes. However, there is also a risk point: some people are worried about whether AI will become a bubble and whether the AI bubble will burst next year. Especially this year, everyone is疯狂ly investing in AI infrastructure, building data centers, computing clusters—these investments are huge. Will this demand continue next year? Because the major companies doing AI infrastructure haven't shown substantial profits yet.
Apart from those building the underlying infrastructure, like Nvidia, which is performing very well, other companies doing large-scale infrastructure haven't seen clear profits, including OpenAI's profit situation which hasn't materialized yet. With such huge investments, it's natural to wonder, "Is this a bubble?" Just like the internet bubble back then, huge investments but insufficient application landing. However, from the current perspective, the practical utility of AI is very obvious.
Colin: I saw that Alibaba's CEO recently refuted the "AI bubble theory," believing there is no AI bubble in the next three years. Do you think the bubble is already very big now, or is it not really a bubble yet?
Lin Han: I think when a new thing emerges, people will inevitably have very high expectations for it, believing it will change humanity and the future. The higher the expectations, the more concentrated the short-term investments, which also pushes up valuations. This is normal. But I don't think this necessarily means it's a bubble. Even if there is a pullback, it depends on whether these applications will eventually enter the market and be widely accepted by users. If they are accepted later, then it can't be called a bubble; but during the development process, there will indeed be some bubbly parts.
For example, the most familiar example in the crypto circle is the NFT boom热潮 in 2022~2023, which even extended to the Web2领域. Facebook even changed its name to Meta, wanting to do Metaverse, the virtual universe. At that time, people thought the pandemic's remote work demand would change lifestyles through VR and virtual worlds. But it didn't meet expectations, so that wave can be considered a bubble.
But AI is clearly different now. AI has many practical applications. People used to think it would replace search engines, but now search engines themselves are fully embracing AI. Many search results are summarized by AI, saving a lot of time. And as AI advances, humanoid robots, intelligent assistant systems will be increasingly used in production and daily life—these are all very practical needs.
Views on the 1011 Crash Event?
Colin: Actually, you mentioned earlier that the industry was in good shape from June to October, and what everyone considered a relative turning point was the so-called 1011 event. How significant do you think the impact of this event on the industry is? From the results, it seems that although the subsequent liquidation volume hit a historical high, the market didn't have a sustained major reaction. As an observer from the exchange side, I feel the same. What's your view? Did it cause any significant impact on the industry?
Lin Han: I think the impact is actually not significant. The reason is, from the data we see now, although the price did drop 20%-30%, and Bitcoin's market cap shrank accordingly, if we look at the stablecoin market cap of the entire industry: it was about $200 billion at the beginning of the year, and has now接近 $300 billion. During this round of decline, the stablecoin market cap几乎没有明显收缩.
This shows that people只是 converted assets from volatile assets to stablecoins for temporary holding, rather than withdrawing from the market. Once a certain opportunity arises, this part of the capital will回流 very quickly. So I think this is the core reason why this event didn't have a major impact on the industry overall.
Additionally, Bitcoin's current position around $80,000-$90,000 is not low. Looking back over the past two years, starting from just over $20,000 in mid-2023, it has increased four to five times now. This is already astonishing compared to traditional stock markets or other assets. Therefore, even after this correction, it is still in a relatively high range.
PoR Proof of Reserves After the FTX Event
Colin: Although this market cycle has been very volatile, no exchange has gone bankrupt or run away because of it. This naturally reminds people of the wave of bankruptcies after FTX collapsed. At that time, Gate also emphasized early on that it was doing PoR Proof of Reserves. From my personal perspective, FTX's bankruptcy forced the entire industry's exchanges to use stricter PoR to prove "no misappropriation of user assets." This is a very important progress for the industry. What's your view? Is there still room for improvement in the current PoR?
Lin Han: I think the point you raised is very crucial; we also thought about it repeatedly back then. Why? Because around 2020, we were almost the first exchange to use Merkle trees for Proof of Reserves. Zero-knowledge proof and similar technologies weren't used at that time, so our approach was to hire one of the top US accounting firms to conduct the Proof of Reserves for us. They could see our internal data and on-chain data, then issue a verification report to users, and also published our audit results on their own website. We were already doing Proof of Reserves back then.
Later, we even open-sourced this system, released the code, and encouraged everyone to use it together. We also repeatedly called on other exchanges to do Proof of Reserves, but almost no exchange followed suit. I don't know if you remember, but basically no one was willing to do this proactively at that time.
It wasn't until the FTX incident erupted that, under public opinion and user pressure, they were forced to start implementing PoR. But for the long-term development of the entire industry, this matter is very important. It laid a foundation: the probability of another large-scale爆雷 event like FTX happening in the future will be much smaller. As you said, despite such a large decline and significant volatility for many exchanges, even technical failures, overall there were no issues regarding protecting user funds and reserve充足性. There was no systemic liquidity crisis; exchanges didn't get stuck or collapse due to concentrated user withdrawals.
Actually, this situation wasn't unique to FTX in the past; many exchanges have had similar爆雷 events, just on different scales. But now this is rare, which is a good thing.
Colin: Returning to the previous question, from a user's perspective, is the current PoR sufficient? Are there any loopholes or areas worthy of upgrade? Especially from a technical perspective, what's your view?
Lin Han: I think there are still many areas that can be upgraded. Relying solely on Merkle trees is not enough. Merkle trees only allow users to know "my assets are in this tree, counted by the platform," but users don't know what rules or program logic the platform uses to count assets in the backend. So a better approach now is to use zero-knowledge proof for assistance.
Zero-knowledge proof can公开 the method and rules you use to count assets in the system. Although it won't泄露 each user's specific asset amount, protecting privacy, the entire statistical method can be formally verified externally. Another very important point is that it must be open source—the statistical method and code must be open-sourced.
But open-sourcing alone is not enough; third-party auditing is also needed. Professional security agencies need to audit the code and the方案, proving that your statistical logic and proof system are reliable. Only then is it complete. So among the exchanges currently claiming to do PoR, few have actually implemented the complete set of "Merkle tree + zero-knowledge proof + open source + third-party audit." Many platforms say they have PoR, Proof of Reserves, but lack zero-knowledge proof or serious auditing, leaving a large gray area in between.
Resurgence of the Privacy Track, Long-term Game Between Zcash and Regulation
Colin: Recently, early privacy protocol tokens like Zcash have quickly gained popularity again, and there's a lot of external discussion. At the same time, Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation have also established a new department specifically researching privacy technology. Do you think privacy-related themes will become an important track in the near future?
Lin Han: I believe this is a very important track and theme. Privacy coins are not new; they appeared very early, and Zcash has existed for many years. I remember deeply, around 2017 when Zcash first launched, the mining of the first block excited many people. The reason this technology attracts attention is that people pursue freedom—including freedom to control their own assets and freedom to protect personal privacy.
Blockchain确实实现了 asset sovereignty; Bitcoin and Ethereum allow users to self-custody without needing banks. But the problem is, they are "too transparent." All fund flows, every transaction, are recorded on the chain. You media folks must be very familiar with this: large on-chain addresses can be tracked and analyzed move by move. Once an address is labeled, it's almost a "transparent person." Therefore, the demand for privacy protection is enormous, and Zcash was born for this purpose.
If private transactions can become widespread on-chain, it will definitely attract a large number of users to switch from public chains to privacy chains for transactions. But the biggest challenge for privacy coins is regulation. Some users indeed have legitimate privacy needs, but others will use it for money laundering, concealing fund sources, which creates a natural conflict with anti-money laundering regulations.
Colin: Actually, I feel that to some extent, privacy coins have become hotter this year, whether it's Hyperledger or Zcash becoming popular. Including OKX很有意思, which delisted all privacy coins two years ago and now relisted them. I feel this has a lot to do with the regulatory attitude of the Trump administration. During the previous administration, no one dared to do this.
Strategic Logic Behind Gate's Compliance Layout in the US
Colin: Gate has recently been advancing its compliant station in the US, launching local compliant business. What is your future development strategy in the US? If there is a future US party rotation and policies tighten again, will it affect your development in the US?
Lin Han: Before Trump took office, the entire crypto circle faced great pressure. The reason we didn't launch in the US at that time was that starting from 2021, we陆续 applied for licenses in the US, but never真正启动运营. It wasn't due to technical or capability issues, but because we believed that with the regulatory framework not yet fully clear, it was more important to ensure the platform could operate long-term, steadily, and compliantly.
We consulted many US local lawyers and legal advisors who have深耕 the industry for years, but even they couldn't give a clear judgment. For example, whether certain tokens are securities, different agencies indeed have different views. Regulatory agencies are also continuously improving related rules. Under such high uncertainty, we chose to remain prudent. Although licenses were陆续 obtained, the platform did not immediately start operations; instead, we prioritized夯实 the compliance foundation.
This year, the regulatory path for digital assets in the US has gradually become clearer, and the market environment is relatively more stable. This led us to judge that we could gradually advance business, so we officially launched the US station in August this year.
Colin: What about the future business plan in the US? If there is a change in administration in the future, are you worried about policies tightening again?
Lin Han: There might be some adjustments in policies, but the general direction is difficult to completely reverse. We currently have MTL licenses in 31 states in the US, and another 10 states have given no-action letters, allowing us to serve a total of 42 states. Out of all 50 US states, we are working on completing the remaining eight or nine. Basically, most regions of the US can be covered.
Next, we will further expand business types. Under the current licenses, we can do spot trading, Staking, buying/selling coins, etc. But look at the US market: platforms like Coinbase, Kraken are starting to expand更多服务, like prediction markets, on-chain derivatives, etc.
In the past, these businesses were difficult to land in the US, but now some prediction markets have deployed in the US, and even Robinhood, Coinbase have started接触 and launched some related services.
So we judge that the US is currently a very suitable time for Web3 innovation business, and we will continue to advance license expansion and extend in more directions.
Discussion on the Reasons for the Explosion of Perp DEXs (Hyperliquid, etc.)
Colin: Actually, another important hotspot in the past year is Perp DEXs, on-chain derivative platforms represented by Hyperliquid. Although on-chain derivatives have existed for a long time, from DYDX to other platforms that have been around for years, it seems that Hyperliquid's sudden explosion pulled the entire track up, even forcing centralized exchanges like Binance, OKX, Gate to invest heavily to support them, otherwise users would be snatched away. Have you studied Hyperliquid yourself? What do you think about its sudden rise? They only have an 11-person team, achieving this so quickly is indeed夸张.
Lin Han: Actually, in the Web3 world, it's very common for small teams to suddenly create huge projects. The early Uniswap team was also small; OpenSea's team wasn't large when NFTs exploded; later, many top DeFi projects started with small teams.
You are right, the Perp DEX track already had people doing it in 2022, 2023; DYDX's trading volume wasn't small at that time. We actually launched our own Perp DEX very early,推出 a Rollup based on zero-knowledge proof (ZK) in June 2023, packing transactions on-chain, allowing users to verify on-chain, very similar to DYDX's approach. But why didn't it become popular then, but can now?
The core reason is that the entire industry's infrastructure has undergone qualitative changes in the past two years.
The improvement in this industry's infrastructure is very fast, but daily coin traders don't feel it. The infrastructure progress is mainly reflected in two points: capacity increase and cost decrease. Layer2 protocols are continuously launched, performance keeps improving.
The early DYDX wave had points, people were farming, but the on-chain cost was too high back then. When we did ZK Rollup, it required a lot of GPUs for ZK computation, performance was only about 100 TPS, which was completely unable to support high-frequency trading, and the cost per transaction was very expensive, limiting development.
Later, Hyperliquid's situation was completely different: on-chain costs were already very low, performance almost接近 centralized exchanges, able to put all orders on-chain—this is a huge breakthrough.
Another major benefit is the wallet experience has greatly improved. Wallets were difficult to use, complex, private key management was extremely risky; now托管 wallets, mnemonic management are greatly simplified, some can even automatically back up to iCloud, user entry barriers are significantly lowered.
Additionally, a very crucial driving factor—points incentives. Projects like Lighter, Hyperliquid recently, the reason trading volume exploded is that points can reduce user costs, increase returns, attracting a large amount of quantitative traffic to migrate to Perp DEXs.
Colin: Looking forward, exchanges can actually be divided into three categories now:
1. Pure compliance type (e.g., HashKey),
2. Offshore type (Binance, OKX, Gate, etc.),
3. On-chain Perp DEX (Hyperliquid, Aster, DYDX, etc.). As Perp DEXs grow, will they face anti-money laundering, KYC regulatory requirements? For example, if users from North Korea come to use it, what then? How do you view the future structure?
Lin Han: Your classification is very accurate. The compliant type must fully comply with local regulations; for example, Gate entities in Europe are regulated under MiCA, we have a VARA license in Dubai, and are licensed to operate in Japan; the third category is the Web3 / DeFi ecosystem.
But I think DeFi is currently only in a temporary regulatory空白阶段, and will soon be纳入监管. Recent news already shows policies in Dubai starting to regulate DeFi, requiring DeFi services to also be regulated by the financial authority.
When I communicated with regulatory agencies in Europe, I also clearly felt they are formulating DeFi regulatory frameworks. It's just that the DeFi model is too different from traditional financial institutions, making regulation very difficult: CEXs can be regulated like banks, payment institutions; but DeFi is on-chain protocols, regulating the front-end is useless, the underlying smart contracts are still running.
They are now also discussing what methods to use for effective regulation of DeFi; it's only a matter of time.
Colin: Indeed, because the Trump administration's attitude is relatively宽松, people have recently somewhat ignored that regulation will come eventually.
Lin Han: Yes. Actually, from my observation, DeFi regulatory progress is slower than I expected, but it will definitely come. It's just that the form will be different from CEXs because on-chain regulation is too difficult, requiring new technical solutions and regulatory logic.
Will Gate Lay Off Employees?
Colin: Recently, many exchanges have been laying off employees—will you lay off employees?
Lin Han: Gate's rhythm has always been relatively stable. I don't know if you remember, in mid-2022 the industry started major layoffs. At that time, the internet industry was overall declining, and the crypto circle followed with layoffs; many exchanges laid off 20%, 30%. I calculated that Gate only laid off about 5% at that time. Gate has never been a company that "opens and closes dramatically"; we don't suddenly hire many people, nor suddenly lay off many people.
Our recruitment has always been cautious and节奏平缓. Even though the market is somewhat下滑 now, we judge that the industry overall won't be greatly affected, so we won't do large-scale layoffs. It's more about maintaining a natural attrition rhythm, not激进的人员优化.
We've been in this industry for over twelve years. In these 12 years, we have never done那种剧烈的人力扩张或收缩. We always believe that long-term steadiness and consistent rhythm are more suitable for exchange development.
Will Gate Go Public?
Colin: Have you thought about going public on traditional stock markets?
Lin Han: Actually, I hoped very early that this industry could go public. I started the exchange in 2013. At that time, the crypto industry was completely不被主流认可; many people even thought Bitcoin was negative, and there was a lot of negative media coverage. I remember around 2018, 2019, or 2020, when Coinbase went public, it was very振奋 for me. For the first time, I felt "so the crypto circle can really be recognized by the mainstream market, it can really go public."
Now everyone is used to ETF approvals, mainstream institution participation, etc., but that moment back then was very different in significance. So at that time, I actually hoped to take this path of "正规化、上市化". It is precisely because of this that we started systematically promoting compliance from those years, applying for licenses around the world. Look at the top exchanges now; Gate is one of those that have applied for the most licenses. These efforts are actually to make future listing possible.
If the company itself operates in a compliant manner long-term, listing will be smoother; otherwise, a lot of rectification is needed. I think OKX is going through a similar process now, including internal compliance team building, business structure adjustment, process transformation, financial standardization, etc. All these must be done well to move towards listing.
Colin: So according to what you said, you actually have this "goal" or "vision" all along. As the industry becomes more compliant and the company more mature, eventually take the path to listing?
Lin Han: Exactly, that's right.
Not Optimistic About DAT, Low Sustainability
Colin: Have you participated in the DATs that have been hot recently in the past half year? How do you view their sudden rise and rapid fall into difficulties?
Lin Han: We did not participate in DATs, nor will we find partners to put some coins into a listed company shell and then operate. I personally have reservations about this direction, mainly because the technical barrier is not high. It's just buying a shell and saying you are a "company that buys and manages coins." This model is too thin.
What is the actual meaning of purely hoarding coins? Actually, this model is somewhat similar to ETFs. ETFs also help you manage a basket of assets and are already very mature. DATs and ETFs are not very different. Some DATs claim the difference is "I buy coins for you," but after buying, they don't sell, just keep hoarding. A bit more玩法, like doing Staking, for example, Solana or Ethereum Staking income, but not much else beyond that.
So I think it's more of a short-term途径 for people in certain regions who cannot directly buy coins to indirectly接触 virtual assets through this method. The reason it was very hot for a while is that it met the demand of "people who can't directly buy coins," even leading to high premiums.
Colin: There's also a feeling of market manipulation. They find a shell with a very small market cap, put coins into it, and then it gets pumped quickly.
Lin Han: Yes, that situation exists. So I think the DAT direction has low sustainability and not much space, so we basically haven't接触ed it.
Next Year's Focus: Comprehensive Advancement of Web3 and Compliance Stations
Colin: This year is almost over. What are the most important goals, plans, or issues Gate hopes to solve next year?
Lin Han: There are a few key goals. The first is in Web3. Our internal direction is "All in Web3"; we will invest more resources next year. Because from the data, we very clearly see user behavior is massively migrating to Web3. As mentioned earlier, infrastructure has become very mature—wallet experience is better, on-chain performance is higher, costs are lower.
From a trading volume perspective, over 25% of spot trading volume is now completed on DEXs; I think the real number might be close to 50%. Because刷量 cost on CEXs is almost zero, exaggerating trading volume; but刷量 cost on DEXs is high, so the volume is more real. After comprehensive comparison, the actual proportion on DEXs is very large.
Since users have the ability to manage assets themselves and the experience is good, they naturally prefer self-custody rather than giving money to centralized institutions. Therefore, users will increasingly move on-chain. We must follow this trend and increase investment; this is not just for next year, but for long-term layout.
The second focus is local compliance stations. We currently have local stations in many places including Dubai, Australia, Japan, Europe, etc. Once a compliance station is落地, local market promotion, brand宣传, advertising, customer meetups, community activities can truly be carried out. So next year, in these compliant markets, we will invest a lot of effort to expand the local user base.
Colin: Understood, one is Web3, one is compliance stations. Also, I feel that users' willingness to use DEXs in different regions is also related to taxes. For example, Korean users, because taxes are deferred, don't use DEXs much, but in the US and Europe, taxes are heavier, so usage habits are different.
Lin Han: Indeed, many people also consider tax factors.
Colin: I also thought of something: Gate has made some investments or acquisitions this year. In future Web3 development, might you not only do it yourself but also acquire some mature protocols? Especially when the market declines, centralized exchanges have relatively stronger capital reserves and can acquire products with existing user bases at lower prices.
Lin Han: We focus on two types of directions. The first type is infrastructure, including underlying chains, on-chain deposit/withdrawal, cross-chain bridges, underlying protocols, etc. These are all essential infrastructure for the industry; we also need to use them ourselves, so we will consider investment or acquisition in the future.
The second type is more directly related to our business, like the product direction you mentioned. We invested in ADEN and have展开深度合作. ADEN is, in our view, a leader in the industry focused on product and trading experience, achieving extremely high trading volume without relying on points or刷量, driven by product strength, so we will focus on cooperation.
Colin: It feels like in the next year, every centralized exchange will deeply support one or even multiple Perp DEXs.
Lin Han: I think this is inevitable. It doesn't necessarily have to be孵化; exchanges might also do it themselves. Because CEXs themselves have complete infrastructure and a huge user base; migrating these capabilities on-chain is not difficult, and user habits are easy to转化.
More importantly: Users are already migrating to Web3. If CEXs don't prepare on-chain products in advance, they won't be able to catch users in the future.
This is why we must push forward simultaneously in both Web3 and compliance directions.
Talent Flowing to AI, What to Do?
Colin: In recent years, it feels like developers are all going into AI. In the early days, whether it was the crypto or DeFi era, there were many entrepreneurs, but now new startup projects in California, US are almost all doing AI. Crypto entrepreneurs instead go to teams in New York doing stablecoins, funds, financial services. It's even hard to see young people at conferences. Are you worried about this phenomenon? Does it mean that starting a business in the crypto circle is becoming increasingly difficult? Especially since security costs are also high now.
For example, in AI, a few college students can quickly create a product because it doesn't involve assets. But in the crypto circle, a few students doing a project is extremely risky, whether in terms of compliance or security issues. Won't this weaken the industry's innovation vitality?
Lin Han: I think it's like this: AI and blockchain are indeed the two hottest industries now. From our long-term observation in blockchain, there are still many people entering the blockchain industry, it's just not as easy as before. AI is more tech-oriented, with strong appeal; while blockchain is tech + finance, so you mentioned why it's more active in New York—it's because New York itself has a strong financial attribute, which matches its positioning very well.
I always believe that blockchain will eventually change almost all global financial industries—banking, consumer finance, wealth management, investment, etc.—because its efficiency is too high and cost too low; traditional finance will eventually be渗透 by it. So there are still many opportunities.
However, the phenomenon you mentioned确实存在: now more and more powerful large companies, institutions, whales are entering the industry, making it much more difficult for ordinary entrepreneurs than a few years ago. In the early days, blockchain was immature, opportunities were everywhere, one person or a few people could accomplish things; but now competition is fiercer.
But even so, I still think blockchain is a very good industry for entrepreneurship. Compared to traditional industries, the difficulty of starting a business is much lower:
In Web2 or traditional finance, you need to start a company, raise funds, and eventually go public—the difficulty is extremely high, investors are also very cautious because exit mechanisms are limited.
But in the crypto circle, going public is very easy, exiting is also easy, so investors are willing to invest in you. Even if no one invests, you can directly do an IDO in a Web3 way, even issue a meme coin, to quickly obtain startup capital.
Therefore, compared to traditional industries, blockchain entrepreneurship is still easier, with more opportunities; it's just slightly more difficult than the "golden age" a few years ago.
Will You Acquire a Bank?
Colin: In the future, will Gate consider acquiring a bank, or issuing its own stablecoin?
Lin Han: We have indeed invested in several banks related to crypto before, although not controlling stakes, we will invest in some infrastructure companies closely related to our business. These are strategic assets, very important for industry construction. From the current progress, these banks are gradually starting to play a role and are developing well.
As for stablecoins, we are of course also very optimistic. But the problem with stablecoins is that they are too homogeneous. Why can USDT dominate? Tether's size far exceeds other issuers; even though Circle is compliant and influential in the US, its scale is still much smaller.
This is a typical Matthew effect. There is little differentiation between stablecoins, and the larger the size, the better the liquidity, the better the on-chain收益, so it rolls bigger and bigger. So if you want to issue a new stablecoin, break through the Matthew effect, and have users use it on a large scale, it is very difficult.
Our current strategy is to launch GUSD, but not模仿 USDT or USDC to do a simple "USD reserve stablecoin." Our approach is to use it as a wrapper for comprehensive assets, the underlying still uses other stablecoins, combined with RWA, like US Treasury bonds, Treasury bills, etc., to form a comprehensive, optimized allocation product.
Because there are too many stablecoins, users find it difficult to choose. We help users optimize assets through combination, somewhat similar to an RWA stablecoin, rather than directly competing with USDT, which is more practical.
Of course, the stablecoin itself is indeed a huge track. If you really succeed, it's almost "lying down to make money." Look at Tether, it might earn billions to tens of billions of USD a year, but its actual operating team is not large, and the business model is very light. This is why so many people挤进 this track.
But to truly become a top stablecoin issuer, the difficulty is extremely, extremely great.
Views on Active Market Makers?
Colin: Controversies surrounding "active market makers" in the past half year or year. There are many discussions, like market manipulation, cooperating with project parties to pump and dump,套钱, etc. I believe you must know a lot about this. What's your view?
Lin Han: From what we see, it's roughly divided into two types of situations.
The first type is quantitative institutions with neutral strategies. These larger quantitative teams mainly do neutral strategies and also take on market-making roles, using passive strategies to provide depth and improve liquidity. These institutions are large, with stable strategies, and do not involve market manipulation行为. Their trading volume is large but basically属于 normal market-making activities.
The second type is what you said: purposefully pumping, dumping, and then套钱 from the market. This situation was more common in early exchanges because their risk control detection capabilities weren't as strong back then.
But in the past year or two, the entire industry's risk control capabilities have improved tremendously; detection technology is very mature. Although people still try to manipulate the market, the success rate is very low. From our data at Gate, over 90% of manipulation行为 are identified and blocked by the risk control system before or during execution. So the survival space for such teams is very small now.
Response to Corporate Culture Criticism?
Colin: Exchanges face the problem of remote management, and离职 personnel also vent dissatisfaction online, etc. Do you usually pay attention to these criticisms? What's your view?
Lin Han: We do receive some feedback and can feel these discussions. I think it can be looked at from two aspects: one is objective facts, the other is some characteristics unique to the crypto circle industry.
The objective fact is that the blockchain industry is essentially FinTech—technology + finance. And the tech industry itself is one of the fastest-paced among all industries; like the example of AI we discussed earlier. To keep up with the pace, the work rhythm naturally becomes fast.
The financial industry itself is also extremely busy and extremely卷. Combining technology and finance, you can imagine the work intensity. Especially trading platforms, they are the hardest in the entire industry because it's 7x24 hour trading. You have to face users随时, handle various emergencies随时, must deal with暴涨暴跌 immediately, so the work intensity is indeed high. This is客观存在的.
The second point is that the work style in the crypto circle is very special. We are very similar to Binance; almost everyone works remotely. Some local stations have small offices but don't require daily attendance; everyone can choose freely. Some people like to gather at the office regularly, but most of the time they work from home.
This method actually breaks the traditional "9-to-5 system." So many discussions about 996,大小周 actually don't apply in the crypto circle. Even if you say it's 007, it's not completely夸张, because in a remote state, it's hard to define when "work time" is. If you are online, you are collaborating.
This work mode has completely different requirements for people. Gate doesn't care where you work; you can work while taking care of children, family, even while traveling—completely fine. As long as you are online and can collaborate.
So this method requires very high self-management. People who adjust well will really like this free rhythm; no need to ask for leave to pick up kids, won't be restricted by family issues. But some people prefer complete separation: work during work hours, absolutely no work after hours. Then this mode is not suitable for them. I think more and more companies will adopt remote methods in the future.
Some time ago, I gave a speech at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. A student asked whether to enter the crypto circle. I encourage everyone to try because there are too many opportunities. If you can enter this industry early and adapt to this work rhythm and lifestyle, it will actually be very good.
For Gate, we hope to find like-minded people, those who truly like blockchain and believe it can change the future. I remember deeply, in 2013 when we launched Bter, the slogan was "Come with us, change the world." We hope to work with such partners.
Of course, the HR team也确实 needs to invest more, need to explain industry characteristics and work methods to newcomers, and judge whether candidates are suitable for this rhythm.
As for some external voices, I think it's normal. Every industry has criticism; especially people expressing dissatisfaction after leaving is normal. What we can do is ensure the company fulfills its commitments—clear communication upon joining, standardized compensation upon leaving, bonuses and options paid as agreed. You rarely see negative voices about these aspects online, so I don't think it's a serious problem; it's more about adaptation issues brought by industry characteristics and remote culture.
