What services are Binance, OKX, and Bitget offering behind the phrase "esteemed VIP"?

Author: Liao Liao, Odaily

Have you ever calculated such an account?

Assuming you are a relatively high-frequency trader, with an average monthly trading volume exceeding 1 million dollars, even a 0.01% difference in fees can accumulate to thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars over a year.

In the past bull markets, this gap was easily masked by market fluctuations. Capturing a surge or a hot trend, with daily gains of dozens of points, was enough to cover most of the fee costs. However, as the market gradually enters a phase of stagnation, more and more traders are beginning to realize: what truly determines long-term returns is no longer just how much can be earned from each trade. To achieve results in today's market competition, one must manage the profit and loss ratio of each trade more meticulously.

This has brought a term that was once somewhat distant from ordinary users back into the public eye ------ VIP. In the past, ordinary users often had a defensive mindset towards the term VIP, subconsciously thinking it was a privilege reserved for "whales" with tens of millions of dollars in their accounts, too far removed from themselves. However, from the market trends in the first half of 2026, this inertia is being broken, as leading exchanges are successively lowering the entry thresholds for VIPs. Compared to the past, where competition relied solely on attracting new users, subsidies, and the speed of listing coins, the competition among exchanges is clearly entering a stage of "rolling out services."

Since exchanges are actively lowering thresholds, for ordinary users, especially those with limited assets but relatively mature trading strategies, VIP is no longer just a vanity title, but a practical channel for improving efficiency.

Therefore, this article will not discuss market trends or trading strategies, but will take the perspective of ordinary users to analyze the VIP systems of several mainstream exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Bitget. In the context of continuously lowering VIP thresholds and exchanges fully rolling out services, which scheme is more suitable for today's traders?

Comparison of VIP Systems of Three Major Exchanges

Before making a formal comparison, we need to address one issue. The VIP system structures of various exchanges are different, with trading, holdings, borrowing, options, OTC, invitations, migrations… each exchange supports multiple different VIP upgrade paths.

For ordinary users, there is no need to thoroughly study all the rules. To help everyone avoid cumbersome terms, we can first outline a user segmentation judgment framework based on capital volume and trading habits. You can first check which category you belong to, and then identify the most suitable upgrade path for yourself.

• From an operational style perspective, users in the market can roughly be divided into "low-frequency holding" and "high-frequency trading" types. The former typically has fewer trades but retains a certain scale of assets in their accounts for a long time, making them more suitable for focusing on VIP upgrade paths related to "holding amount"; the latter has a higher trading frequency, and even with a lower capital amount, the total trading volume accumulated often expands quickly (especially for contract users), so they pay more attention to "trading volume" upgrade paths and actual fee discounts.
• From the perspective of asset scale, users in the market can be roughly divided into "small retail," "growing users," and "large accounts." "Small retail" and "large accounts" are self-explanatory; the former finds it difficult to reach the VIP thresholds of major exchanges, while the latter can easily unlock top VIP benefits at various exchanges (at this level, the treatment is generally good). Here, we emphasize the increasing number of "growing users" in recent years.

The so-called "growing users" are those whose asset scale has not yet reached the traditional "large account" standard but have begun to form stable trading habits and actively optimize details such as fees, slippage, and capital utilization. This group of users is actually one of the most fiercely targeted demographics in the current competition among exchanges, as they have great potential to become core users in the future.

1. Entry Threshold

During March to April of this year, major exchanges have successively lowered their entry thresholds.

Binance officially announced on March 18 that it lowered the BNB holding thresholds and contract trading volume requirements for VIP levels 1-3: the BNB holding threshold for VIP 1 was reduced from 25 to 5, and the contract trading volume requirement was lowered from 15 million dollars to 5 million dollars. At the same time, Binance launched the VIP "Rising Star Program," aimed at users with an average net asset balance of 30,000 dollars (including 5 or more BNB) over 30 days, allowing eligible users to receive exclusive VIP support, participate in selected events, and have faster opportunities to upgrade to Binance VIP.

OKX announced on March 24 that it lowered the 30-day contract trading volume threshold for VIP levels 1-3 (VIP 1 from 10 million dollars to 5 million dollars); and on April 8, it announced that the threshold for priority customer service channels was lowered to "current asset balance or 30-day average asset balance not less than 30,000 dollars." Although this is not a direct reduction of the VIP threshold, it allows users meeting this condition to enjoy the same service response priority as VIP users.

Compared to Binance and OKX, Bitget has not focused on "how high to set the threshold" since the day it built its VIP system, but rather on "how to cover more people": holding an amount exceeding 30,000 dollars, or having a trading volume of 500,000 dollars in spot trading, or 5 million dollars in contract trading is enough to upgrade to VIP 1. Additionally, Bitget launched the "VIP Fast Track" event on April 2, aimed at precisely incentivizing those currently at V0 level or only holding temporary experience permissions, providing additional rewards to reduce friction and help them accelerate their upgrade to formal VIP levels 1-3.

The VIP upgrade requirements of the three major exchanges can be seen in the image below.

In summary, the 30,000 dollars holding balance is a user profile range that major exchanges are concentrating on competing for, covering the mainstream user group within the industry, especially those with the potential to become core users in the future. Both Binance and OKX have granted some VIP benefits to this user group, while Bitget has directly set this as the entry threshold for formal VIPs.

Moreover, it is clear that the VIP upgrade difficulty of Bitget is much lower than that of Binance and OKX. Compared to the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in holding and trading volume requirements of the other two exchanges, Bitget only requires 10 million dollars in holdings to unlock the highest level VIP-7.

As shown in the image above, if your total holding value is 50,000 dollars, you have not reached the VIP threshold on Binance and OKX, but you can upgrade to VIP-2 on Bitget; if your total holding value is 1 million dollars, you can only reach VIP 2 on Binance and OKX, but can achieve VIP-4 on Bitget; if your total holding value is 10 million dollars, you can directly unlock Bitget's highest level discount, achieving zero fees for spot and contract orders.

Faster upgrade progress means users can more efficiently unlock exclusive rights of higher-level VIPs.

2. Asset Supply

In addition to VIP thresholds, another increasingly influential factor on user trading experience is the platform's asset supply capability.

As the narrative of RWA and asset tokenization continues to heat up, traditional financial assets such as US stocks, precious metals, commodities, and Pre-IPO equity are being rapidly moved on-chain. Compared to the past, where competition mainly revolved around cryptocurrencies, more and more trading platforms are evolving towards a "multi-asset one-stop trading entry."

From the current market landscape, exchanges like Binance, OKX, Bitget, as well as emerging DEXs like Hyperliquid and Trade.xyz, are all laying out towards this direction.

For instance, Binance maintains its mainstream trading advantage by relying on its strongest liquidity and asset coverage, and recently has also provided users with a window to layout US stocks and other assets by launching contract products and derivative tokens; OKX has launched a TradFi version tracking traditional assets and is continuously strengthening the integration capabilities of its on-chain ecosystem and Web3 trading scenarios, allowing users to complete multi-asset layouts directly on-chain through its wallet; Bitget was the first to propose the UEX (Universal Exchange) panoramic trading strategy last September, seamlessly connecting cryptocurrencies and traditional finance, being the first exchange to launch US stock contracts and a major traffic source for Ondo's US stock tokens. From recent months' actions, Bitget's asset coverage is continuously expanding, with clear acceleration in areas like US stocks, CFDs, and Pre-IPO.

I personally use OKX's wallet to buy US stock tokens in spot, then do equivalent contract short orders on Binance to hedge funding fees, and recently have actively traded several times on Bitget. First, last week I wanted to invest in Rocket Lab (RKLB), which was gaining popularity due to SpaceX's upcoming IPO, and found that only Bitget had launched RKLB's stock token among several exchanges; second, before the opening of the hottest IPO project Cerebras Systems (CBRS) last week, Bitget was the first among the three exchanges to launch CBRS's Pre-IPO contract, so I casually opened a small order; additionally, I also participated in two Pre-IPO new shares on Bitget (preSPAX and preOPAI), both of which have been rising since the opening. As of the time of writing, the former is priced at 894 dollars, up 37.5% from the subscription price of 650 dollars; the latter is priced at 928 dollars, up 28% from the subscription price of 725 dollars.

3. Other Benefits

Additionally, some other small benefits that come with VIP status, such as token airdrops, physical gifts, event tickets, private meeting qualifications, global travel, etc., although these are not core factors for users when choosing a trading platform, they can further influence the long-term user experience for highly active users.

Exchanges Engage in "Service Wars"

Fee discounts and asset supply compete on the platform's "hardware" capabilities, but what ordinary users need goes far beyond this. When encountering various unexpected situations, the efficiency and distance of platform communication and other "software" experiences often determine whether users can remain for the long term.

With the industry benefits reaching a peak, the VIP systems of major exchanges are evolving from static numerical rules into an all-encompassing "service rolling" covert battle. Even though Binance is already the largest exchange in the industry, He Yi still personally answers user questions on social media every day; on the OKX side, the threshold for VIP exclusive customer service has been significantly lowered, granting more comprehensive service capabilities to a larger user base; Bitget has recently emphasized the service philosophy of "coming in means being VIP," and has collectively brought the VIP customer manager team members to the forefront—publicly appearing and staying active on X, with its Greater China region head, Xie Jiayin, also frequently appearing in front of users. This approach of putting the real service team in front of users has, to some extent, lowered the psychological barrier for users seeking help.

These are all reflections of exchanges concentrating on "rolling out services." In an era where asset types are increasingly rich and trading products are becoming more complex, the factors affecting trading experience are no longer just the fee discounts themselves, but also include risk control responses, product rule synchronization, problem handling efficiency, and a whole set of service capabilities. For trading users, "whether they can quickly find someone," "whether they can respond in a timely manner after a problem arises," and "whether problems are resolved quickly" have already become a more important part of the platform experience.

The logic behind this is that as the industry moves towards a phase of stagnant competition, exchanges are finding it increasingly difficult to achieve rapid growth solely through traffic expansion. Whoever can better serve active users for the long term and accompany users in their growth will have a better chance of gaining an advantage in the next stage of competition.

How Should Ordinary Users Choose?

It can be said that in this "soft and hard service war" initiated by exchanges, the biggest beneficiaries are actually the trading users at the forefront of the market. Whether it is lower entry thresholds, more transparent growth paths, or more complete service systems, they are essentially exchanges' re-competition for core users and potential core users during the phase of stagnant competition.

Conversely, for ordinary users, if they want to better manage long-term trading, they should actively seize this precious "VIP sinking dividend."

As for how ordinary users should choose? Overall, Binance still has the strongest liquidity and global depth; OKX has a clear advantage in its expertise in on-chain ecosystem integration; Bitget tends to cover rapidly growing trading users through lower thresholds and more proactive services, while providing opportunities for diversified asset layouts through its UEX panoramic strategy.

If you value trading depth and global liquidity more, Binance is still the most reliable choice; if you focus more on on-chain ecology and Web3 trading experience, OKX may be more suitable; and if you are currently in a phase of rapid growth in trading scale and hope to unlock complete VIP rights earlier, while also having asset allocation needs for US stocks, Pre-IPO, and other diversified assets, then Bitget's system design will be more aligned with your actual situation.

To some extent, this may also be the most noteworthy point in this round of industry changes. In the past, VIPs were more like privileges that only a few large accounts could reach, but now, more and more platforms are trying to make VIP a capability to serve users earlier and accompany them in their growth.

For ordinary users, this may be the truly valuable change.