#Gate广场四月发帖挑战

Recently, narratives around AI, robotics, and other technologies continue to surge forward, while the crypto industry remains restrained and low-profile. Beyond the noise, the market may be waiting for new structural variables.

Odaily Planet Daily was fortunate to interview Dr. Han, Founder and CEO of Gate. We had a systematic conversation about the current state of the crypto market, tokenization of stocks and RWA, Gate’s compliance landscape, and future development. As a frontline entrepreneur who has been deeply involved in the industry since 2013, Dr. Han shared unique insights on cycle judgment, product evolution, and global compliance strategies.

To present clearly, Odaily Planet Daily summarizes the interview in brief below. Enjoy~

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All in Web3 and Intelligent Web3
Odaily Planet Daily: In 2025, Bitcoin’s annual return lagged behind major assets like gold and silver; meanwhile, AI, robotics, and other tech industries are being hotly pursued by capital and markets, with new developments happening daily. In contrast, the crypto industry seems to be slowing down in innovation. How do you view this phenomenon of “bustling outside but cold inside” in the crypto space?

Dr. Han: Over the past year, gold has been in a bull market cycle, repeatedly hitting new highs. During this period, the crypto market has been relatively in a bear cycle. But every industry has its own cycles, and I think this is normal. The crypto space doesn’t need to be overly discouraged because of this.

The core of the tech boom still revolves around AI. The popularity of AI has driven many industries, such as energy, chips, software, and even infrastructure like communication bandwidth. On the surface, it looks like everyone is chasing AI, making the crypto industry seem quiet, but actually, AI development is not a bad thing for crypto; it can be very helpful.

Odaily Planet Daily: So, how is Gate integrating its business with AI?

Dr. Han: For us, there are mainly two levels. One is that AI can help us provide services faster externally, including front-end development and design, which are now largely assisted or replaced by AI, greatly improving our efficiency. Although many core logics on the back end still require human input, I believe they will be replaced soon.

From our company’s perspective, this helps us. The other level is helping users. For example, in customer service systems where AI first makes an impact, users have various questions. Human customer service is limited by knowledge scope and can’t know everything, but AI is very strong in this area. It can give good answers, even help users calculate positions, with very high efficiency.

AI’s role is no longer limited to customer service; it can also be seen in product layers. The next step might be that we don’t even need product interfaces—just an AI chat window where all questions are handled by AI.

Odaily Planet Daily: Gate proposed an All in Web3 strategic development framework in 2025. What achievements have been made based on this strategy?

Dr. Han: Last year, we launched the “All in Web3” strategy mainly based on observing user behavior trends: more and more users are migrating from centralized trading platforms to Web3.

In fact, we started deploying Web3-related businesses as early as 2020. But at that time, we found it difficult for users to truly integrate and use decentralized platforms. Many users quickly left after mining, making it hard to build a real user base. Plus, the underlying infrastructure was not yet mature, which limited user experience improvements.

It wasn’t until last year that we reassessed the market environment and believed that Web3 infrastructure had become relatively mature. Web3 wallets had significantly improved in asset protection and mnemonic backup mechanisms, on-chain liquidity was increasing, and the ecosystem’s asset types were more diverse. Therefore, we thought now was a good time to push Web3 platforms again.

The biggest achievement Gate made in the past year is building a friendly, easy-to-use Web3 infrastructure for users. Gate Wallet is a key example of this achievement.

Odaily Planet Daily: Can you tell us more about Gate’s previous concept of Intelligent Web3? How can ordinary users understand it?

Dr. Han: We proposed the concept of “Intelligent Web3” mainly based on a significant change in the industry.

Currently, the entire crypto industry is in a phase of information explosion, with new tokens and products emerging daily. New users find it hard to understand each project, and even experienced users get overwhelmed by the vast amount of information. For example, trading Memecoins in Web3 involves tracking thousands of new tokens daily, monitoring Twitter discussions, analyzing popularity, and observing holding data—all of which are nearly impossible to do manually.

So, we thought AI could help users solve this problem. Intelligent Web3 means letting AI agents handle complex blockchain transactions—users tell AI what they want in natural language, and AI understands and executes various strategies and intents.

Although it sounds simple, the actual implementation is much more complex. The hardest part is trust and authorization. AI acts as a proxy for the user, but there’s no inherent trust relationship. How do we ensure that when users give assets to AI, they aren’t at risk? This requires a complete protocol to support.

The core logic of Intelligent Web3 is that user intents expressed to AI need to be confirmed via signatures, with clear scope limits. After AI completes tasks, verification mechanisms are needed to ensure the results are trustworthy.

Forecast for the Crypto Industry in 2026
Odaily Planet Daily: Prediction markets are among the few “capital favored + breakout” sectors in crypto for 2025–2026. How do you view the popularity of prediction markets?

Dr. Han: Prediction markets have grown significantly in the past two years. They can price a large number of uncertain events, predicting the probability of future outcomes. Their settlement efficiency is high, which encourages more participation. I believe prediction markets are not a zero-sum game; they shouldn’t be equated with gambling. They have great positive value for society. For uncertain future events, if we can know the probabilities in advance through prediction markets, we can prepare accordingly.

Odaily Planet Daily: What other sub-sectors and directions in crypto do you think are worth paying attention to in 2026?

Dr. Han: The first is payments. This sector has grown rapidly over the past year because blockchain can solve pain points in traditional payments, such as transfer costs and times. With these advantages, the scale of crypto payments will continue to expand. The second is RWA. Traditional assets like gold, crude oil, and US stocks are entering crypto via tokenization. The crypto community is open to quality assets, and once RWA channels are open, many investors will participate. The third is DEX. Data shows that more users prefer trading on DEXs than centralized exchanges, so Gate will focus on this area in the future.

Building a “Two-Way Fusion” Ecosystem of TradFi and Crypto
Odaily Planet Daily: Traditional exchanges like NYSE and NASDAQ have announced plans for stock tokenization and crypto trading. Will they encroach on crypto exchanges’ business in the future? How does Gate respond to such competition?

Dr. Han: I don’t see it as a threat; rather, it’s good publicity for crypto. When they build bridges between traditional finance and crypto, it will bring us more users. For example, when Bitcoin spot ETFs were approved, the market thought users would buy ETFs instead of actual Bitcoin on exchanges. But that didn’t happen; trading volumes on exchanges continued to grow over the years.

As for stock tokenization, for traditional exchanges like NYSE and NASDAQ, it won’t bring many new users. But once that channel is open, we have the opportunity to add this trading product, allowing crypto users to better trade traditional assets. That’s a big positive for us.

We also hope to introduce tokenized stocks into crypto markets. Currently, Bitcoin drives the entire altcoin market, moving together. When market conditions are poor, trading enthusiasm drops, and options are limited. But with tokenized gold and stocks entering crypto, users have more asset allocation choices.

Odaily Planet Daily: Gate is also developing TradFi businesses. How does Gate position this? Is it aimed at synergizing with core crypto operations to build a “two-way fusion” ecosystem, strengthening its overall moat? How has it performed since launch?

Dr. Han: Our idea with TradFi is simple: we’re not trying to compete with traditional finance but to integrate it with our crypto business, creating a mutually supportive ecosystem. TradFi is an extension and complement to us. It helps us connect better with traditional finance and allows crypto users to access more traditional financial tools. We hope this two-way fusion will gradually eliminate the barriers between traditional and crypto.

We officially launched TradFi in mid-January. It’s been just over a month, and total trading volume has already exceeded $95 billion. The platform now supports 144 trading categories, including metals, stocks, indices, forex, and commodities. This growth has exceeded our expectations and shows that users have a strong demand for more diversified investment options.

Challenges Gate Faces
Odaily Planet Daily: Gate experienced rapid growth in spot and derivatives in 2025, with user numbers surpassing 50 million. What challenges have you and your team encountered during this fast expansion?

Dr. Han: I believe the biggest challenge now is adapting to changes in work styles. Gate has always operated fully online, which offers significant flexibility: talent recruitment is not limited by geography, and management is no longer constrained by fixed time and space. Employees can arrange their work according to their own rhythm.

But online work also demands new organizational and individual capabilities. Not everyone can quickly adapt to this highly autonomous work style. New employees often need time to integrate into collaboration and transition from traditional office work to remote work. Correspondingly, the company needs to explore management systems suited for this new organizational form.

In today’s social context, companies need more independent and self-managing individuals. This trend is evident not only in blockchain but also in AI. As AI technology develops, many repetitive and process-driven tasks are being replaced, and human value is increasingly in proactive thinking and autonomous planning.

We are at a critical stage of organizational transformation. Helping teams adapt to this change and building a more efficient remote collaboration culture is a challenge we will continue to face.

Odaily Planet Daily: Last year, Gate’s personnel adjustments sparked widespread discussion. What are your thoughts and ideas on internal management?

Dr. Han: From our perspective, it’s a normal internal personnel adjustment. Any over-interpretation is due to information gaps.

In recent years, Gate’s staff has been growing, thanks to the overall good market conditions and rapid business development. As the platform’s user base increased, so did demand. This requires us to accelerate product development and service response to meet user needs. Teams like Market, BD, and Brand have maintained high efficiency.

Such fast-paced work is common in financial industries like exchanges. Wall Street and major brokerages operate at similar speeds. Blockchain is fundamentally a financial industry, and a slow pace like some physical industries is hard to achieve.

AI is also reshaping enterprise productivity, improving overall efficiency. From Block to Elon Musk’s companies and traditional tech giants, layoffs are essentially about replacing 5–10 people with one person + AI. This is an irreversible industry upgrade, not just cyclical fluctuation.

Odaily Planet Daily: Gate’s spot market launched 447 tokens in 2025, with 318 being first-ever listings. Is the number of listings too high or too frequent?

Dr. Han: Gate has been actively listing tokens since 2013. Back then, we not only supported Bitcoin but also launched Litecoin and DOGE. DOGE accounted for 90% of Gate’s global trading volume at that time. During the Ethereum ICO era, discussions about which tokens to list became more serious, but Gate has always maintained an open stance. Looking at all exchanges today, the trend toward openness is unstoppable; Gate just realized this decades earlier.

Centralized exchanges are essentially just tools for user trading, functionally similar to DEXs. DEXs are very open, with no strict listing standards. Centralized exchanges should adapt to this trend. Our goal is to provide users with protections and tools, such as data analysis and contract checks to identify scam tokens or risky tokens. But we cannot decide what tokens users trade; we respect DYOR.

Odaily Planet Daily: In 2025, Gate heavily developed content marketplaces. Other exchanges are also pushing social features, like Binance Square and OKX Planet. Why are exchanges developing social functions? Will this become the next major battleground in exchange competition?

Dr. Han: Gate has been doing social features very early. We launched chat in 2013, which I personally developed. Trading naturally generates sharing desires—whether you profit or lose, you want to discuss with other investors. To facilitate better communication, we launched content marketplaces and Gate Live. Several competitors have also been doing this in recent years. Social is indeed an important sector, but for exchanges, it’s not core business; it’s just a channel for information sharing and communication among investors.

Gate’s Compliance Progress and Future Plans
Odaily Planet Daily: Compliance has always been a top priority for exchanges. What achievements has Gate made in compliance in 2025? What are the plans for 2026?

Dr. Han: Gate started compliance efforts as early as 2018. In 2018, we applied for a license in Malta. In 2022, Gate obtained Malta’s licensed custody and trading licenses. Since then, we’ve been expanding compliance globally. 2025 was the year we obtained the most licenses—35 in the US, covering 46 jurisdictions, allowing us to operate legally in most parts of the US. In Europe, we can operate legally in over 20 countries. We also obtained licenses in Australia, Japan, and other regions.

After seven or eight years of effort, Gate can now operate in most compliant regions worldwide. We are also paying attention to emerging regions and will actively pursue new opportunities. Additionally, we are exploring new fields—besides blockchain custody and trading licenses, we aim to obtain more licenses in payments and derivatives.

Odaily Planet Daily: Last December, you mentioned in an interview with Wu Shuo that Gate has a “vision” of going public. How is that plan structured?

Dr. Han: Going public is part of Gate’s long-term plan. The compliance efforts over these years also support this goal. On one hand, compliance deepens user trust; on the other, it positively impacts Gate’s valuation. Our overall strategy is to establish relatively independent entities in different regions and gradually achieve listing in each.

Closing
Recently, “raising lobsters” has become a buzzword in the tech circle. It refers to deploying and training open-source AI agents like OpenClaw—named because its icon resembles a red lobster.

Just two weeks after our interview, Gate launched the AI Agent platform GateClaw (Gate Blue Lobster). This AI assistant, tailored for crypto scenarios, is built on the OpenClaw framework but doesn’t require users to buy hardware or deploy and maintain it—they can just open and use it. It can check market data, find functions, and aggregate information, and is currently available for free.

Looking back at our interview with Gate CEO Dr. Han two weeks ago, he said: “Maybe in the future, product interfaces won’t even be needed—just an AI chat window where AI handles all questions.” The launch of GateClaw is the first step toward this vision. It eliminates the cost of “raising lobsters” for users and truly opens up the space for AI + Web3 to everyone.