Universal Exchanges: Bitget's Shift Away from Pure Crypto Focus

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen believes that the era of pure crypto exchanges is over. She thinks that centralized exchanges, or crypto exchanges in general, will struggle to remain competitive if they only focus on digital assets.

In an interview with Yellow.com, Chen stated that platforms must expand into traditional assets and compliance-driven models to stay ahead. She expects Bitcoin prices and stablecoin adoption to continue rising, but is cautious about altcoins, saying 'I don't think the pure crypto-native altcoin market is going to grow that much.'

Chen's comments reflect a broader industry shift as exchanges rebrand themselves as 'Universal Exchanges', integrating stocks, real-world assets, and on-chain trading under one platform.

The CEO also warned that traditional banks are entering 24/7 settlement and tokenized deposit markets, challenging exchanges' historical liquidity advantage. Chen said, 'The liquidity model that centralized exchanges had is now kind of evaporating.'

Bitget has repositioned itself as a UEX, or Universal Exchange, offering crypto alongside US equities and other global assets tradable via stablecoins.