Bitget Chief Legal Officer's 8th Anniversary Open Letter: Over the past 8 years, what remains unchanged is responsibility

Author: Bitget Chief Legal Officer Hon Ng

Eight years is a milestone worth remembering for Bitget.

Looking back at this eight-year mark, the starting point, changes, and growth of the platform have become clearer.

Eight years ago, Bitget was a trading platform focused on cryptocurrency derivatives. Eight years later, we have served over 125 million users and gradually expanded to a variety of global assets such as U.S. stocks, gold, and foreign exchange under the vision of the Universal Exchange (UEX).

The changes at Bitget over the past eight years are not just about growth in scale. From initially focusing on cryptocurrency trading to today’s continuous expansion of asset and market boundaries, the users, assets, and trading scenarios connected by the platform are constantly extending.

But one thing has remained unchanged: the farther the platform goes, the heavier the responsibility on our shoulders.

As users have more trading options, we must provide a more solid foundation to safeguard these choices; as the platform enters more markets, we must respond to the expectations that come with it with higher standards.

For Bitget, this means greater transparency, a more comprehensive security system, and a compliance capability that can support the long-term development of different markets.

More importantly, these standards cannot remain in the past.

As the platform grows, the standards must grow; as the market changes, the responsibilities must evolve.

This is also our deeper understanding of the word "responsibility" after eight years.

Making Trust Visible and Verifiable

When users entrust their assets to the platform, the platform has the responsibility to ensure that this trust is traceable and verifiable.

In December 2022, Bitget launched the Proof of Reserves. Since then, we have insisted on publishing reserve data monthly, ensuring that user assets are at least 1:1 reserved, and allowing users to independently verify whether their assets are included in the platform's reserves through the Merkle Tree verification mechanism.

We have always believed that transparency is not a promise; it is a continuous action. As of September 2026, Bitget has released 46 consecutive Proof of Reserves reports, with an overall reserve ratio reaching 135%, and an average reserve ratio consistently maintained above 120%.

On the occasion of our eighth anniversary, we expanded the coverage of the Proof of Reserves from the initial four assets to 19, including traditional financial assets like XAUT.

As the number of assets users can trade increases, the responsibilities the platform must bear should also extend accordingly. Wherever the boundaries of assets expand, the scope of transparency and verification should follow.

However, we are well aware that user protection goes far beyond reserves. It concerns account security, market order, and the management and control behind every mechanism of the platform. Therefore, we have built another layer of protection.

In 2022, Bitget established the Protection Fund, initially set at $300 million, to provide users with additional financial security in extreme situations.

By August 2026, the average valuation of this fund was approximately $382 million.

We firmly believe that safety is not about single-point protection, but a comprehensive mechanism throughout the entire process: identifying risks from the source, strengthening protection in details, and ensuring that every potential risk link has corresponding safety barriers.

This is not only about user protection but also about how we respond to every trust and bear the corresponding responsibilities.

Protection Beyond a Single Layer

Safety has no endpoint, and no single tool can address all risks.

Therefore, we have built a security mechanism that covers the platform: from the stable operation of underlying infrastructure to account login and device management, trading, and asset withdrawals, ensuring that security protection runs through the entire process of users using the platform.

Users can utilize security features such as two-factor authentication (2FA), FIDO2 and WebAuthn Passkeys, anti-phishing codes, and device management; at the same time, the platform also provides backend support for every user operation through withdrawal protection, trading monitoring, abnormal behavior detection, and anti-fraud systems.

Moreover, ensuring user safety also means proactively taking on the responsibility of maintaining the trading environment.

Earlier this year, Bitget launched the Market Order and Token Responsibility Framework, further strengthening the ongoing supervision of listed assets, project teams, and market makers, promoting all parties in the market to assume corresponding responsibilities through more comprehensive monitoring and handling mechanisms.

We aim to identify abnormal wallet behaviors, market manipulation, liquidity shortages, and other suspicious trading activities earlier, while further clarifying the responsibilities of project parties and market makers in the market. Once potential violations are detected, we will take corresponding measures based on the specific situation, including enhancing risk warnings, restricting account functions, freezing accounts, suspending trading, or delisting relevant assets when appropriate.

Maintaining market order is also about maintaining every user's confidence in the market.

Entering more markets also means taking on more responsibilities.

The same principle runs through our compliance work. The more markets Bitget serves, the more diverse and complex the regulatory environment we face.

Different jurisdictions have their own regulatory frameworks, asset classifications, and risk requirements, and the demands placed on the platform vary. For us, entering a new market also means re-understanding the local rules and establishing compliance capabilities that match the corresponding regulatory framework.

Currently, Bitget's regulatory landscape covers multiple jurisdictions, including Argentina, Australia, El Salvador, Georgia (Tbilisi Free Zone), Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and has obtained corresponding registrations, licenses, or regulatory approvals.

In the face of different markets and asset classes, we continuously improve KYC and KYB processes, anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) controls, sanctions list screening, trading monitoring, and other compliance mechanisms, while maintaining ongoing communication with regulatory authorities.

The development of UEX has also given this responsibility new connotations.

As cryptocurrency assets, tokenized stocks, commodities, and other assets enter a unified trading environment, the platform must face different market structures, trading mechanisms, and risk characteristics, and must enable the security capabilities originally dispersed across different assets and businesses to operate collaboratively on the same platform.

Therefore, Bitget has been continuously improving the UEX Security Standards, covering verifiable solvency, multi-asset risk isolation, data and privacy protection, dynamic monitoring, and application and infrastructure defenses across multiple areas.

As the boundaries of the market continue to expand, the responsibilities the platform must bear must also extend accordingly.

Eight Years On, What Remains Unchanged is Responsibility

After eight years in this industry, we have come to a clearer realization: no set of standards can remain unchanged. Transparency must keep pace with the platform's development, security must keep pace with changes in risk, and compliance must keep pace with the evolution of the market and regulatory environment.

The journey of eight years has made us more certain: growth and responsibility have never been two independent matters. With every step forward the platform takes, users gain more choices; at the same time, the scope of protection, verification, and responsibility we need to undertake will also expand.

Eight years ago, users began to entrust their trust to Bitget.

Today, users encounter a more diverse range of assets on Bitget, with richer choices and broader trading scenarios. The responsibilities of the platform that accompany this are also heavier than they were eight years ago.

On this eighth anniversary, as we reflect on and consolidate Bitget's growth, we are also reminded: some things will change, but some things must not.

The platform can continue to grow, the market can continue to expand, and products can continue to innovate.

But the responsibility to protect user assets must not change.

The commitment to safety and compliance must not change.

The transparency that allows users to see, understand, and verify the platform's operations must not change.

Throughout this journey, what has truly not changed is our enduring reverence for the trust of our users.

The theme of Bitget's eighth anniversary is "Trading Extremism." This phrase represents not only the infrastructure and product capabilities the platform can provide but also a platform based on safety, guided by transparency, and grounded in responsibility, allowing users to trade with greater peace of mind.

Eight years is a milestone, but also a new starting point. Looking back today, we see the changes along the way and understand the responsibilities on our shoulders more clearly.

The farther we go, the more we must not forget why we started; the more users we serve, the more we must cherish every trust placed in us.

As we enter our ninth year, we will continue to move forward. These unchanging commitments will continue to be the foundation of our progress.