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Why we Invested $30m in DeFi Wallet Bitkeep – Gracy Chen, Managing Director of Bitget
As a cryptocurrency exchange and digital asset trading platform, Bitget has begun to explore new vistas of opportunities as it hopes to collaborate with BitKeep in order to leverage the respective strengths and advantages of Decentralized finance in its global operations. Gracy Chen, Bitget Managing Director, in this interview with Ugo Onwuaso, speaks on why it invested $30 million in BitKeep, among many other issues.
Bitget Managing Director Gracy Chen
Excerpts:
Hi Gracy, good to have you here. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and when did you join Bitget
Formerly, I was an anchor and producer at the technology and finance channel of Phoenix TV, one of the largest Asian media conglomerates. That’s also around the time that some of my friends (who are famous crypto entrepreneurs and investors today such as He Yi, co-founder of Binance, and Tim Draper, whom I studied from when I was at Draper University) introduced me to the crypto industry. In 2014, I started to invest in cryptocurrencies including BTC, ETH, and XRP, not in huge amounts. I think people should build portfolios with small percentage investment in crypto according to their own experience and risk-tolerance level. And it’s only since 2017, that I started to invest more in the primary and secondary crypto market. For example, I‘ve been an investor in the early days of BitKeep, Asia’s leading decentralized wallet and Bitget’s sister company. So in this journey, I have witnessed the brand’s development and growth throughout the years. Hence, I decided to join Bitget in 2022, changing the role from an investor to a builder.
Can you tell us about the recent Bitget investment of $30 million in BitKeep
The investment is beneficial for both Bitget and BitKeep as they collaborate to connect DeFi and CeFi, leveraging their respective strengths. The integration of BitKeep Wallet with Bitget’s business domain will enhance the exchange’s product offering and expand its business into the wallet sector, providing native storage and asset management services.
Furthermore, BitKeep’s substantial user base of over 8 million in 168 countries will enable Bitget to tap into a new pool of potential clients. Additionally, BitKeep’s impressive range of services, including access to diverse DeFi protocols and NFT projects across various blockchains, will allow Bitget to transform from a prominent derivative exchange into a comprehensive and holistic exchange with a growing ecosystem, thus delving deeper into the Web3 space.
We have seen you giving speeches in different events talking about Bitget flagship product copy trading. Can you tell us more about Social Trading and how Bitget is helping its users with this innovative product? Do you follow any traders on the platform, any tips you want to share
With the vision to increase financial independence, we focus on transforming the way people connect and trade with social trading. We believe in the power of social trading and make it our quintessential feature, allowing us to differentiate among exchanges such as Binance and OKX, offering users valuable services.
High barriers to crypto investment hinder its mass adoption. Copy trading with more social interactions will be the key. Launched in May 2020, Bitget is the first crypto exchange to introduce copy trading features. It now supports copy trading in the spot market, futures market, and copy a strategist. Since its launch, the copy trading feature on Bitget has attracted more than 80,000 elite traders to share their strategies and more than 380,000 followers to copy, making it the largest crypto copy trading platform. As of Jan 2023, the number of profitable trades through Bitget copy trading is over 47 million, with gains from profitable trades reaching 300 million, and profits shared by elite traders reaching USD 20 million.
“Bitget Insights”, is a new feature on our platform, which makes social trading more accessible to everyone. The feature is acting as a mixture of “social media + trading”, and its curated “lead traders” can post their chart analysis, technical strategies, and articles, to share their insights with followers and help them make smarter financial decisions. As of Jan 2023, over 500 trading experts are sharing their crypto market insights on the platform with nearly 10,000 posts generated.
In the future, we will continue to bring innovative products and services, providing more trading strategies and skills for our users and helping beginners to learn more about the industry.
Changing topic, in this period it is inevitable to talk about the banking crisis. How do you see this impacting the crypto industry? What would you suggest to all our readers considering that there might be more banks on the verge of collapse
I think there will be inevitable development in the space after this wave of bank closures. We are living in an increasingly multipolar, interconnected and multicultural world. Since the 1980s, financial institutions and financial markets have no longer been operating within an enclosed geographical space. Instead, we are trading in a global and highly networked business arena. In this financial context, it is not realistic to think that we can continue to rely on siloed and immutable financial systems.
We need flexible, elevated open-source algorithms, time-efficient financial structures that cut settlement times as well as costs, and transactions that are not only frictionless but also borderless. Digital currencies offer exactly that. So, cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges have been portrayed as an alternative to traditional banking, but actually we are expanding the financial offerings with the more advanced ecosystem. Most of the traditional banking businesses, such as loans, mortgage and credit cards etc, will still need banks to perform, and crypto exchanges can provide some innovative financial services with its infrastructure.
Bitget did great in 2022 while the market and several crypto companies were collapsing. What’s the secret sauce you have been using to grow rapidly and fast
The year 2022 was one of the roughest in the crypto industry. The collapse of Terra LUNA, Celsius, and FTX, consequently wiping out over US$2 trillion from the crypto market. Despite the hardships in the market, Bitget grew in all aspects; the company made great strides in building our team, brand, and business over the last 12 months during the crypto winter.
Some key development areas of the company included:
- Climbing the chart ranked as the Top 3 exchange according to the Boston Consulting Group report, in terms of crypto derivative trading volume.
- According to the latest TokenInsight report, Bitget’s market share in the derivative market increased from 3% to 11% after the collapse of FTX
- Over 300% increase in total transaction volume, with the popularity of copy trading products
- The workforce grew from barely 200 people at the beginning of 2022 to over 1300 employees now
- Became the exclusive crypto exchange partner with Lionel Messi
Bitget is the first and largest crypto copy trading platform, connecting beginners with professional traders. Launched in May 2020, Bitget now supports copy trading in the spot market, futures market, and copy a strategist. Since its launch, the copy trading feature on Bitget has attracted more than 80,000 elite traders to share their strategies and more than 380,000 followers to copy.
These figures of growth attribute to our endeavors on not only service improvement and product innovation, but also the global expansion and adoption of top-notch security and protection measures. Previously, the company focused on serving customers from a few Asian countries alone. However, by the end of 2022, the exchange had acquired over 8 million users in more than 100 countries, with footprints in Turkey, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Bitget is safeguarding users’ funds on the platform with a series of security policies, including a $300 million Protection Fund, a Fund Custody service, pledged to be fully reserved back by the Merkle Tree Proof of Reserves model.
Can you tell us more about funds security at Bitget? Do you provide any audits
In Bitget, securing users’ assets on our platform has been our top priority since day one, and we have taken plenty of measures on this end. The first response we have done with FTX’s collapse is to launch a US $5 million builders’ fund to assist affected partners, and increased our Bitget Protection Fund to US $300 million with transparent wallet addresses and guarantee no withdrawal for 3 years. As far as I know, our Protection Fund is the second largest among all CEXs so far.
The next thing we worked on is our Proof-of-Reserves. We have developed a verification tool “Merklevalidator” internally and with free access to open-source codes on GitHub. Not only showing reserve status as a whole in the company, users can also verify their own account’s proof of reserves with the tool, and proving our exchange reserve to users assets is at least on an 1:1 ratio.
Aside from financial measures, Bitget’s team has also been working strenuously on platform security as well. Bitget’s security team adopted measures such as mature risk control systems, advanced security governance, trusted wallet encryption and many more to keep cybersecurity threats under control.
Bosun Tijani, minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, yesterday claimed that bandits and terrorists are able to communicate and coordinate their activities with ease because they exploit gaps in the country’s telecommunications network.
Bosun Tijani, minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy,
Tijani, who spoke Politics Today, a Channels Television’s programme, on Friday, Tijani said the criminals exploit gaps in the country’s telecommunications network.
He also claimed the bandits use advanced technology to bounce calls across multiple towers in areas with poor connectivity.
“They weren’t using the normal towers; they bounced calls off multiple towers, which is why they favor areas that are largely unconnected,” he said.
When asked about reports that unregistered or fraudulently registered SIM cards are still in use despite the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and the National Identification Number (NIN)–Subscriber Identity Module linkage policies, Tijani said the issue is technically complex and the reports are not fully verified.
“Whether it’s fact or not, I do not know where you’re getting that from, and I do not know who has evidence that there are people with unregistered SIMs,” he added.
The minister stated that the federal government is investing in telecom towers in underserved regions, upgrading the country’s communication satellites to improve coverage, and expanding fiber-optic networks to strengthen the country’s digital infrastructure.
“If our towers are not working, our satellites will work. Nigeria is the only country in West Africa with communication satellites, and we are bringing new satellites to upgrade their capabilities,” Tijani said.
He added that these initiatives aim to ensure better connectivity for Nigerians while closing loopholes that criminals exploit, thereby enhancing national security.
The minister’s comments come amid rising concerns over insecurity in several parts of the North, where banditry, kidnapping, and terrorism have escalated in recent years.
There are also reports of bandits flaunting ransom payments on social media platforms such as TikTok, raising alarm among authorities and the public
Sophos, a global leader of innovative security solutions for defeating cyberattacks, has announced its best-ever results in the MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise 2025 Evaluation.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise 2025 Evaluation
Sophos XDR detected 100% of adversary behaviors (sub-steps)1 across two complex attack scenarios: Scattered Spider, which Sophos X-Ops tracks as GOLD HARVEST, a financially motivated cybercriminal collective, and Mustang Panda, which Sophos X-Ops tracks as BRONZE PRESIDENT, a People’s Republic of China (PRC) espionage group.
The Scattered Spider scenario included activity across Windows, Linux, and AWS cloud environments, and the Mustang Panda scenario focused on Windows only.
Further, Sophos achieved the highest-possible “Technique”-level rating for 86 out of 90 total sub-steps in the evaluation, by generating high-fidelity detections with details on execution, impact, and adversary behavior, providing clear who, what, when, where, how, and why insights.
Sophos XDR achieved:
- 100% detection coverage1 for all 90 adversary sub-steps across two complex attack scenarios across Windows, Linux, and AWS cloud environments
- Highest possible (“Technique”) ratings for 86 of 90 sub-steps, demonstrating deep visibility and actionable detections
- Highest possible (“Technique”) ratings for 61 out of 62 of sub-steps in the Scattered Spider scenario involving identity abuse, cloud exploitation, and data exfiltration
“Scattered Spider and Mustang Panda represent distinct threat profiles that challenge defenders in very different ways,” said Simon Reed, chief research and scientific officer, Sophos. “Achieving full detection coverage against both validates the accuracy and depth of Sophos’ analytics and demonstrates how the company’s AI-native XDR platform converts complex telemetry into clear, actionable intelligence, helping security teams detect, understand, and stop advanced attacks with confidence.
“Sophos’ consistently strong performance in these rigorous evaluations underscores the power and precision of our threat detection and response capabilities, and our commitment to stopping the world’s most sophisticated cyberthreats.
“Over the five years that Sophos has participated in ATT&CK Evaluations, we have continually invested in strengthening our platform, and that investment has translated into stronger results year after year – both in the evaluations, and in the security outcomes we deliver for our customers.”
These results demonstrate the power of the Sophos XDR platform to defend against sophisticated cyber threats. Every day, Sophos processes 223+ terabytes of telemetry in Sophos Central, generating 34+ million detections and automatically blocking 11+ million threats.
This scale of customer insights ensures that Sophos’ detections are being tested and improved to provide continuous protection while delivering stronger outcomes for organizations worldwide.
Understanding The Threat Actors
Sophos X-Ops has tracked GOLD HARVEST (Scattered Spider) since 2022, observing a loosely affiliated cybercriminal collective driven by both financial motives and a desire to elevate their reputations on underground forums.
Despite several arrests, operators and associates continue to launch high-profile attacks across the U.K. and U.S., at times partnering with major Russian-speaking ransomware groups.
Their sophisticated social engineering capabilities enable them to compromise even well-defended organizations, underscoring the importance of strong behavioral detections within modern security operations.
In parallel, Sophos X-Ops has monitored BRONZE PRESIDENT (Mustang Panda) for many years.
This long-running PRC espionage group conducts intelligence-led operations that align closely with priorities of China’s Ministry of State Security. Recent targeting includes activity against Tibetan communities surrounding the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday, as well as intrusions on Thai government and military offices during periods of heightened regional tension.
BRONZE PRESIDENT remains one of the most active and persistent state-aligned threat actors operating today.
MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations are among the world’s most rigorous independent security tests.
They emulate the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by real-world adversaries to assess each participating vendor’s ability to detect, analyze, and articulate threats in alignment with the MITRE ATT&CK Framework.
These evaluations continually strengthen Sophos’ capabilities for the benefit of the organizations it protects. This was the seventh round of MITRE’s “Enterprise” ATT&CK Evaluation, a product-focused assessment designed to help organizations better understand how security operations solutions like Sophos EDR and Sophos XDR can help them defend against sophisticated, multi-stage attacks.
When evaluating EDR or XDR solutions, Sophos recommends reviewing MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations alongside other independent proof points.
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday announced plans to partner with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to develop an industry-wide short code for consumers to lodge complaints with financial institutions anytime, anywhere, even without internet access.
CBN
Dr Aisha Isa-Olatinwo, CBN Director, Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion Department, disclosed this at a virtual Consumer Protection Town Hall meeting titled “Ask the Regulator”, organised by Enhancing Financial Inclusion and Advancement (EFInA).
She said the initiative addresses challenges faced by vulnerable consumers using feature phones who often have to visit bank branches physically to report issues amid the convergence of telecom and banking services.
Isa-Olatinwo said the CBN had achieved 94 per cent month-on-month timely resolution of consumer complaints, adding that the apex bank had streamlined processes and partnered with banks to balance consumer protection with financial system stability.
An EFInA poll presented at the event revealed that 61 per cent of respondents experienced failed transactions in the past 12 months, while 26 per cent had reversals within 24 hours and 54 per cent between 24 and 48 hours.
Other complaints included six per cent for fraud, 14 per cent for hidden charges and 15 per cent for poor customer service, with 66 per cent of respondents aware of complaint escalation steps.
President of Consumer Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria (CAFON), Mrs Sola Salako-Ajulo, lamented that consumers often feel unprotected and urged introduction of fraud insurance for instant reversals, shifting the burden of proof from customers.
She said: “What is missing in our system—unlike more developed economies—is fraud insurance, where banks reverse reported fraud immediately, refund consumers, and investigate later.”
Mr Ajibade Laolu-Adewale, Chairman of Committee of e-Business Industry Heads (CeBIH), represented by Mr Adeyemi Salisu, stressed that banks must resolve disputes between acquiring and issuing banks without redirecting customers to merchants.
The short code initiative is expected to enhance financial inclusion by providing accessible redress mechanisms in Nigeria’s evolving digital payment ecosystem.
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