The secret to the wealth behind the $30 million departure of Byte employees: How ordinary people can rewrite their financial trajectory using options tools?

Recently, the news that ByteDance employee Leto Bao left after making $30 million from stock trading went viral on social media. The popularity of AI-related stocks goes without saying, and many people's first reaction is that employees of large companies have more capital, making it easier to make money.

But that's not the case. According to the blogger's own description, he initially accumulated his first round of capital from tens of thousands to millions of dollars through options, and later achieved a new leap in wealth by leveraging the storage stock market. Regardless of whether the details are completely accurate, this story points to the same reality: in the U.S. stock market, what truly changes the capital curve is often a combination of industry main lines, core targets, and high-elasticity tools.

Leto Bao Xiaohongshu

In the past, this method was only a game for traditional U.S. stock traders. Users needed a brokerage account, needed U.S. dollar funds, needed to be familiar with U.S. stock trading rules, and also needed to access options and other derivative tools. However, with Bitget announcing the launch of the first U.S. stock options feature in the crypto industry, the entire process can now be completed in one go on Bitget.

Why Options Are Amplifiers of Wealth Effect in U.S. Stocks

If stocks determine direction, options determine elasticity, which is the wealth effect.

In the U.S. stock market, options have always been one of the tools that can maximize capital efficiency. If users are optimistic about a stock, they can directly buy the underlying stock or buy call options. Buying the underlying stock requires full payment of the stock price, while buying options only requires paying the premium to gain exposure to price changes of the same underlying asset.

For high-priced or highly volatile stocks like Nvidia, Microsoft, Micron, and SanDisk, the appeal of options is very direct. Users do not need to put up a large amount of capital to participate in stock price fluctuations. If the directional judgment is correct, the timing is right, and the volatility aligns, the returns from options are far more elastic than those from the underlying stocks, and even higher than the contract trading familiar to the crypto community. This is also why options frequently appear in many stories of wealth accumulation in U.S. stocks.

Once the asset price exceeds the strike price, the intrinsic value of the option begins to increase, and the price rises rapidly.

Of course, the other side of options is equally obvious: both returns and risks are extremely compressed. Especially zero-day options (0DTE), which are options bought and expiring on the same day, have low prices, high volatility, and rapid decay, making them one of the most favored intraday trading tools for retail investors in the U.S. stock market. They can turn a few hundred dollars into thousands or tens of thousands in just a few hours, but they can also cause the premium to drop to zero within hours.

But whether one likes it or not, options have become one of the most important ways to express capital in the U.S. stock market. The total annual trading volume of U.S. options has exceeded 15.2 billion contracts, with an average daily trading volume of over 61 million contracts. In the average daily trading volume of S&P 500 index options, more than half comes from 0DTE options. This trading method, which bets small to gain large, and is quick and efficient, is naturally suited to the high-risk, high-volatility preferences of the crypto industry.

Bitget Brings U.S. Stock Options to the Crypto Trading Platform

According to information from Bitget, Bitget has initially opened over 540 stock options, covering core indices such as the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Dow Jones 30, as well as mainstream ETFs, with more stocks and ETF options to be gradually released later.

U.S. stock spot trading solves the problem of buying assets, while options solve the problem of expressing elasticity. Users can buy Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, or express their judgments on short-term price fluctuations, earnings report volatility, and market sentiment changes through options. For crypto users accustomed to high-volatility assets, options are not unfamiliar. Like perpetual contracts, they compress direction, time, and leverage into a single trading tool. The difference is that stock options are connected to the most mature underlying assets in the U.S. stock market.

Moreover, there are many ways to play options. For example, value investment mogul Duan Yongping habitually uses options for investment, building a large position in Pop Mart by selling put options, and Leto Bao mentioned above is also a professional user of options.

Leto Bao: A classic way to play in a rollercoaster market

However, the initial rules for Bitget's options do not directly maximize complexity.

The trading hours for the newly launched options trading are from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time, supporting cash trading only, and not allowing margin purchases of options. The margin rate for Long Call and Long Put is 100%, meaning that buying options requires full occupation of the premium without additional leverage. The settlement cycle is T+1, consistent with U.S. stock trading.

At the same time, the product supports estimated profit and loss for orders, displaying maximum profit and maximum loss predictions, and also supports order modification, cancellation, and order record inquiries. For crypto users encountering U.S. stock options for the first time, these features are very important. Because for options trading, whether bullish or bearish is not much different from spot trading, but the specific risk boundaries can vary greatly.

This set of rules essentially reduces the probability of misuse for users entering the options market for the first time. Bitget first integrates important capabilities like buying calls and buying puts, allowing users to express directional judgments with premiums while limiting maximum losses to the premium range.

Bitget's U.S. Stock Layout Is Not a One-Time Launch

In the past period, Bitget has been continuously laying out around U.S. stocks and RWA: launching Ondo's U.S. stock tokens → accounting for about 90% of the trading volume on the entire network → Pre-IPO entry → launching U.S. stock rTokens, connecting the exchange ecosystem → direct connection to U.S. stocks, and now to U.S. stock options ------ Bitget is building a complete product line for U.S. stocks.

The reasons are quite evident. What crypto users truly need is to capture global risk asset opportunities more efficiently. In the past, funds in trading platforms mainly flowed between BTC, ETH, and altcoins. But as U.S. tech stocks have become the main focus of global capital, users naturally hope to use the same account system to trade Nvidia, Micron, Apple, Microsoft, and the S&P 500 ETF.

The U.S. stock market is the deepest pool of risk assets globally. AI, semiconductors, cloud computing, software, consumer technology—almost all global capital cannot bypass U.S. stocks. The crypto market has high volatility and high capital efficiency, but asset quality is unstable. In contrast, U.S. stocks have high asset quality and deep liquidity, but traditional trading processes are not friendly enough to crypto users.

What Bitget aims to solve is this gap.

Starting with tokenized stocks, users can access U.S. stock exposure in their crypto accounts; through Pre-IPO, users can access pre-listing opportunities; through direct connection to U.S. stocks, users get closer to a real and secure stock market; and through U.S. stock options, users gain access to more elastic trading tools.

Looking back at this series of layouts, Bitget's goal has become very clear: to bring the main trading layers of the U.S. stock market into crypto accounts: spot exposure, pre-listing opportunities, real liquidity, and options tools.

rToken Is the Foundation of Bitget's U.S. Stock Product Line

In Bitget's U.S. stock product line, the core product is rToken.

Many people see tokenized stocks and easily interpret them as synthetic assets familiar to the crypto circle, which are counterparty trades without roots or sources. However, Bitget's positioning of rToken is completely different. rToken is backed 1:1 by real U.S. stock shares, regulated by New York State law, with shares held at licensed U.S. brokerages, and custodial and brokerage infrastructure provided by regulated partner Alpaca Securities. Alpaca is registered with FINRA and protected by SIPC.

This means that rToken is not simply a synthetic exposure; it is an RWA product supported by real underlying stocks.

The biggest difference from previous stock tokens lies in the source of liquidity. Many RWA stock tokens rely on on-chain liquidity and secondary market trading, and prices may require additional mechanisms to track the underlying stocks. Once on-chain liquidity is insufficient, prices may deviate from the real U.S. stock market.

During U.S. stock trading hours, including regular trading, pre-market, after-hours, and night sessions, rToken spot orders are routed directly to the NASDAQ and NYSE order books through brokerages. After orders are executed in the U.S. stock market, the trading results are reflected back in Bitget's spot order records.

In simple terms, rToken accesses native U.S. stock market liquidity through partners, allowing its latest prices, bid-ask spreads, and order books to be completely consistent with the underlying stock market, while other issuers' U.S. stock tokens still rely on market makers for liquidity. Theoretically, NASDAQ naturally has the best liquidity in the entire market, but how significant is this difference?

Real-world data shows that, taking SanDisk (SNDK) as an example, from the bid-ask spread during the same period, the difference between rToken and bStock is not significant, but in terms of order depth and 24-hour trading volume, rToken shows a clear advantage, leading by 260x and 1000x respectively. This means that for small transactions (within a few hundred dollars), the experience and cost difference between the two are not significant; but for large transactions (thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars), bStock can cause extremely severe trading slippage losses, while rToken's capacity is clearly superior.

This is also why rToken is the foundation of Bitget's U.S. stock product line. With rToken, Bitget can connect U.S. stock exposure, trading liquidity, account capital efficiency, and subsequent derivative tools together.

Three Key Advantages of rToken

The new landscape brought by Bitget rToken can be summarized in three aspects: native U.S. stock market liquidity, extreme capital efficiency, and higher compliance standards.

First is liquidity.

If you choose a major global stock market, how can you truly utilize it without using its liquidity? rToken supports 5x24 access to native U.S. stock market liquidity. During U.S. stock trading hours, the price and liquidity of rToken synchronize with the underlying stock market. Orders are routed directly to U.S. trading platforms, reducing the risk of price deviation or disconnection.

The main disadvantage of tokenized stocks like Ondo lies here. In the U.S. direct connection model, rToken's liquidity is consistent with traditional brokerages, and users' orders face the vast U.S. stock market, while tokenized stocks mainly deal with on-site users and market makers in the crypto industry, which not only easily leads to liquidity shortages and significant slippage but may also cause chain reactions like liquidation due to liquidity shortages.

Comparison of Bitget rToken and Ondo tokenized stocks

For some popular stocks, rToken also supports 24/7 trading. This means that during U.S. market off-hours, including weekends and holidays, users can still trade rTokens related to some popular stocks. Bitget will provide internal liquidity during these periods to support continuous price discovery.

This is important for crypto users. The crypto market does not have weekends, and news does not wait for U.S. stock market opening. Capex updates, AI orders, chip updates, earnings forecasts, macro data, and social media leaks can all occur during non-U.S. trading hours. If users can only wait until the next trading day to react, they will miss the opportunity for first-time pricing. The 24/7 trading capability of rToken fills this gap.

Second is capital efficiency.

Once rToken is sold, the funds can be immediately reinvested without waiting for T+1 settlement. rToken can also be transferred, withdrawn, allocated between sub-accounts, or used for different margin models like other crypto assets. Within a unified trading account, the same rToken position can be used across spot, derivatives, and lending.

This makes rToken a callable collateral asset. Professional users can retain U.S. stock exposure while using rToken as margin for futures trading or as collateral to borrow assets like USDT, USDC, BTC, etc., without selling the underlying position. Currently, this feature supports about 20 rTokens, including Nvidia and SpaceX.

This is also where Bitget stands out compared to most RWA stock products. It does not just provide "buyable stock tokens," but incorporates rToken into its trading ecosystem, allowing U.S. stock assets to continue participating in margin, lending, hedging, and multi-asset strategies. For professional users, U.S. stock exposure is no longer just about positioning; it can also become a foundational asset for enhancing capital efficiency.

Finally, there is compliance and transparency.

Reality, launched by Bitget, is the compliance RWA issuance protocol behind rToken, and the rTokens it issues are strictly anchored 1:1 with the underlying U.S. stocks, with assets held at FINRA-registered, SIPC-protected U.S. brokerage Alpaca, and in cooperation with U.S. auditing firm The Network Firm, making it one of the few RWA products providing audited daily proof of reserves (PoR) data.

Reality RWA asset data

Because it is a tokenization of real stocks, corporate actions such as dividends, stock splits, reverse splits, and capital returns will also be handled according to traditional U.S. stock market practices. If the underlying stock distributes dividends, eligible rToken holders will automatically receive USDT dividends after deducting applicable U.S. withholding tax. If a stock split or reverse split occurs, the rToken balance and price will adjust accordingly, keeping the total holding value unchanged. This makes rToken closer to a complete stock product experience, rather than just a price symbol.

Overall, the significance of rToken is not simply buying and selling U.S. stocks, but rather attempting to combine the trading experience of stocks with the flexibility and transparency of crypto assets.

When the Wealth Path of U.S. Stocks Enters Crypto Accounts

The reason the incident of the ByteDance employee leaving with $30 million sparked discussion is partly due to the exaggerated wealth figure, and also because it has allowed more people to see the wealth path in the U.S. stock market during the AI era: first using options to gain high elasticity, and then using industry main lines and core stocks to carry larger capital scales.

In the past, this path mainly belonged to traditional U.S. stock traders. Now, Bitget is trying to bring it into crypto accounts.

Of course, the road for Bitget's full-chain U.S. stock service is not without challenges. First is the fiercely competitive industry; due to the overall downturn in the crypto market, stocks have become a battleground, as industry giant Binance launched its tokenized stock bStocks shortly after Bitget introduced rToken, also choosing the same service provider, Alpaca; second is that crypto users are not familiar with and do not trust the stock services launched by the platform, requiring long-term education, and even the platform itself is navigating cautiously; and due to the low conversion costs between stablecoins and fiat currencies, traditional brokerages have higher appeal to high-net-worth users.

However, Bitget's forward-looking and deep layout in U.S. stock trading has allowed it to maintain an advantage in competition. rToken provides U.S. stock exposure and stock-level trading experience, Pre-IPO supplements pre-listing opportunities, direct connection to U.S. stocks brings users closer to the real market, and options provide more elastic risk expression tools. Together, they mean that crypto trading platforms are no longer just places for trading crypto assets, but may become new entry points connecting global risk assets. This also means that the platform's next phase of challenges may no longer just be liquidity, technical capabilities, and U.S. stock access channels, but how to gain the trust of traditional brokerage users in product experience, asset transparency, and long-term stability, and further reach a broader investment community.