Ben Strack

Bitget has been trying to reassure current and potential customers who are losing faith, fast, in digital assets. But the cryptocurrency exchange is taking a questionable route.



Bitget Managing Director Gracy Chen last week cited consumers’ trust reaching a nadir — spurred by “collapses of a few crypto giants this year” — as rationale for ramping up marketing and product efforts.



Consider what the company called its <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitget-launches-major-campaign-with-messi-to-reignite-confidence-in-the-crypto-market-301687422.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nov. 26 press release</a> breaking things down: “Bitget launches major campaign with Messi to reignite confidence in the crypto market.” As if a marketing campaign with the soccer star (the rest of the world calls it football, I know) would somehow make the exchange more trustworthy…?



Lionel Messi is among the world’s greatest athletes. He has scored two goals in the first three games of this year’s FIFA World Cup, helping Argentina advance past the group stage.



But how much does Messi know about crypto? This is a business deal for him, and his decision to endorse a crypto brand does not necessarily bestow confidence in a particular company or crypto more broadly.&nbsp;



In fact, Messi several years ago <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej8-yQM7pYo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">endorsed Finney</a>, a blockchain-enabled smartphone by Sirin Labs — run by Moshe Hogeg, who was arrested in 2021 for <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/alleged-dirty-dealings-and-sex-offenses-moshe-hogegs-long-history-of-deceit/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">alleged sex crimes and cryptocurrency fraud</a>. Hogeg has denied these allegations.



<h3>FTX built trust through celebrities&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>



Bitget’s plan to boost trust in crypto, in part, by getting a celebrity to endorse Bitget, signals the exchange has not been paying attention to recent events — or, worse still, has chosen to ignore them.&nbsp;



Why are Bitget’s marketing efforts especially relevant? Well, something big recently happened in crypto land to a company who had some of the world’s biggest celebrities behind it.



FTX was the best when it came to making deals with the world’s largest sports stars and other celebrities to endorse its brand. Tom Brady, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-names-stephen-curry-a-global-ambassador" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Steph Curry</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-inks-deal-with-mlb-star-shohei-ohtani" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Shohei Ohtani</a> were FTX brand ambassadors, as was fashion model Gisele Bündchen. The company landed Larry David for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkUXzqD8xUY" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">its Super Bowl commercial</a> that aired in February.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



FTX <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/whats-next-for-ftx-and-its-customers-after-bankruptcy-filing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">filed for bankruptcy</a> last month.



Perhaps celebrities do help persuade people to put their trust in crypto. Perhaps that was why FTX’s debacle stung so many.&nbsp;



<h3>Proper communications is important</h3>



I’m not naive enough to think companies, including crypto ones, will not utilize celebrities to endorse their brands going forward.&nbsp;



Binance, for example, unveiled an NFT collection with football star Christiano Ronaldo that became available Nov. 18. The company’s press release around the launch said the athlete’s collection was “aiming to give his fans an introduction to Web3 through the world of NFTs.”



But, for me, it truly was the title of Bitget’s press release — using a celebrity partnership to spur trust in the crypto space — that had me baffled.&nbsp;



Reading through the announcement, Messi does mention that “it’s reassuring to see Bitget taking this seriously with a series of protection initiatives.”



The last paragraph mentions Bitget’s launch of a $5 million “Builders&#8217; Fund” for users distressed by FTX’s crash. It also notes the company raising the size of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitget-rolls-out-200m-protection-fund-to-safeguard-users-crypto" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">its Protection Fund</a> — designed to safeguard against hacks and theft — to $300 million last month.



But not mentioned are other measures Bitget is taking, such as its soon-to-be-shared <a href="https://www.bitget.com/academy/en/article-details/Transparency-as-a-priority-Bitget-shows-proof-of-reserves" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Merkle Tree proof of reserves</a> in an effort “to promote complete transparency and comprehensive asset auditing.” Now, those could actually move the needle. That could be something worth trusting.



Learn more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/what-are-proof-of-reserves-and-can-they-build-back-trust" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">What Is Proof of Reserves and Can It Build Back Trust?</a>



Chen told Blockworks in a statement that the company also had various protective measures in place before FTX&#8217;s crash, including hot and cold wallet separation, a multi-signature wallet and zero-trust security architecture.



“We do all this to show the market that in the world of crypto, companies with real strength are immune to the rocky market, and when facing adversity, it is the best time to focus inwards and keep building,” she added.



So Bitget, like other crypto exchanges, appears to be taking legitimate steps to regain customer trust after FTX’s collapse.



So, don’t take this as a condemnation of Bitget as a company, but rather a reminder that words and marketing matter. Exchanges would be better off hammering home the details of their specific security and transparency efforts than touting celebrity partnerships.&nbsp;



As we would say in journalism, “Bitget buried the lede.”



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Bitget’s Celebrity Partnership Comes Across Tone Deaf

Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_62e75b0bec983" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Bitget wants to shore up trader and investor confidence with a new &#8220;protection fund&#8221;</li>
 <li>Bitcoin and tether will make up the exchange&#8217;s war chest, currently worth more than $200 million</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Singapore-headquartered crypto derivatives exchange Bitget said Sunday it has launched a new fund designed to safeguard against hacks and theft — a bid to lift the industry&#8217;s image after crypto&#8217;s recent downturn.



The exchange&#8217;s $200 million-plus &#8220;Protection Fund,&#8221; which consists of 6,000 BTC ($140.2 million) and 80 million USDT, is an attempt to quell security&nbsp;concerns and boost investor confidence, Bitget said.



Recent market turmoil, fueled by lender <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-deleveraging-cycle-wont-last-much-longer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">contagion</a> that caught many industry participants by surprise, has battered faith in crypto&#8217;s ability to weather significant periods of volatility.



Multiple lenders and exchanges moved to restrict or freeze crypto asset withdrawals from their platforms following revelations they didn&#8217;t have the capital on hand to satisfy users who wished to opt-out of the market.



Coupled with billions of dollars lost to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/defi-exploits-top-1-8b-ytd-though-security-getting-better-immunefi-says/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hacks and theft</a> last year, trust in the crypto community alongside the platforms storing users&#8217; assets continues to erode.



Part of the fund&#8217;s stablecoin allocation is meant to help alleviate pressures associated with market volatility, Bitget said.



The exchange, established in 2018, is one of South-East Asia&#8217;s fastest growing derivatives exchanges boasting around 20,000 active traders. Bitget processed close to $100 billion in transactional value in 2021, according to its <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitget-global/about/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LinkedIn profile</a>.



Bitget&nbsp;has pledged to secure the value of its war chest over a three-year horizon. It&#8217;s expected to be self-funded and non-reliant on third-party&nbsp;insurance in what it believes will help navigate beyond &#8220;external bureaucracy&#8221; or &#8220;policy changes.&#8221;



&#8220;The&nbsp;protection fund will help us mitigate investors’ concerns and attract potential users,&#8221; Bitget&#8217;s managing director Gracy Chen said in a statement. &#8220;We believe our initiative would encourage other CEXs [centralized exchanges] to address concerns of accountability &#8230; and help win back investors’ confidence.&#8221;



The move echoes Binance&#8217;s decision to <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/9c513d91af3f497b99da2962322fb3c3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">establish</a> its so-called &#8220;Secure Asset Fund&#8221; in 2018, which came in handy when hackers <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/binance-breach/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raided</a> the exchange for $40 million in the following year. 



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Bitget Rolls Out $200M ‘Protection Fund’ to Safeguard User’s Crypto

<div id="highlights-block_62b5d93dbc438" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Longtime Facebook leader becomes CEO of Web3 advertising provider</li>
 <li>Activision Blizzard executive moves over to lead blockchain gaming company</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Though companies such as <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-com-cutting-5-of-workforce-amid-digital-asset-downturn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Crypto.com</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cryptocurrency-lender-blockfi-set-to-cut-staff-by-a-fifth/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BlockFi</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/coinbase-cut-workforce-ceo-wary-of-potential-recession/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinbase</a> and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/gemini-joins-growing-list-of-crypto-exchanges-cutting-staff-amid-downturn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gemini</a> have recently revealed plans to cut staff or slow hiring, others continue sharing their intentions to grow their headcount.&nbsp;



Demand for talent is strong for firms looking to expand. A recent analysis of Google search data by Cryptojobslist.com found that searches for “remote crypto jobs” grew by 560% worldwide this month.



Crypto exchange OKX announced last week that it plans to increase headcount by 30%, growing by 1,500 people to about 5,000 over the next 12 months.



“Seeing people in our community losing their jobs is quite unsettling,” an OKX spokesperson told Blockworks. “Our focus right now is to see if we can be the home for the incredible talent in our industry who may have been impacted by the recent layoffs.”



The exchange is targeting professionals in product design, engineering and marketing as its main focus shifts to building a leading brand in the space.&nbsp;&nbsp;



OKX has seen a slight increase in applications since the onset of the bear market. It received more applications in April than in any previous month of the year, and even more were submitted in May, according to the company representative.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“This is a great time to hire talent who are coming to the industry not just for the hype but rather because of their pure passion for building,” the spokesperson added.</blockquote>



Derivatives exchange Bitget is also seeing an influx of applicants, most likely due to headcount cuts from other companies, Managing Director Gracy Chen said.&nbsp;



Bitget revealed earlier this week that it seeks to double its workforce to 1,000 people by the end of the year. The company is focused on filling operations, product development and customer services roles across regions in which it has seen growth.&nbsp;



A crypto winter gives the firm “a golden window” to achieve low-cost, high-quality growth, Chen explained. Historical data has proven that with each market downturn, the recurring bull run will bring about even stronger and positive results, she added.



“Oftentimes, a company’s success is very visible during a bull market, however, the foundation was likely established during a bear market,” Chen told Blockworks. “Regardless of the market conditions, it was a pressing business need for us to push forward with our hiring plans to pave way for new developments to come.”



<h3>A look at this week’s hires</h3>



Web3 advertising provider <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3570727-1&amp;h=1983329226&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fpermission.io%2F%3Futm_source%3DBitcoin.com%26utm_medium%3DBlockman.pro%26utm_campaign%3Dpolygon_migration&amp;a=Permission.io" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Permission.io</a> appointed longtime Facebook executive Thomas Shin as its CEO.&nbsp;



Shin has spent 28 years in the digital advertising space at companies such as Meta (formerly Facebook), Yahoo!, MediaMath and Efficient Frontier, which was acquired by Adobe. Most recently, he was head of the Americas business at mobile programmatic startup Moloco.&nbsp;



Permission.io founder and former CEO Charlie Silver is set to become executive chairman.



Crypto exchange OKX brought aboard Rachel Conlan to be its global head of brand marketing and partnerships.



Conlan is responsible for the company’s brand and marketing efforts through partnerships with Manchester City FC, Tribeca Festival and McLaren Racing. The latter collaboration, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-exchange-okx-inks-f1-mega-deal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">revealed in May</a>, came around the time OKX hired chief marketing officer Haider Rafique from competing exchange OKcoin.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Conlan previously led the global partnerships team at international sports and entertainment agency CAA Sports and also worked as global chief marketing operations officer for communications group Havas.



Hut 8 Mining named Aniss Amdiss as its chief legal officer. He will lead Hut 8’s legal and governance portfolios and serve as corporate secretary, reporting to CEO Jaime Leverton.&nbsp;



Prior to joining Hut 8, Amdiss served as vice president of legal, general counsel and corporate secretary at healthcare services company Greenbrook TMS Inc.



Digital asset custody company Digivault has added Greg Vosper as its chief commercial officer to drive the firm’s business development, partnerships and sales strategy.&nbsp;



Vosper was most recently the director of strategic partnerships at Zodia Custody, a crypto custody solution built by Standard Chartered’s venture arm and asset management giant Northern Trust. He was also previously the lead of new client development and sales at CME Group and a business advisory and tax committee manager at Nexia International.



Private markets investment management firm Hamilton Lane hired Victor Jung to its newly created head of digital assets role.&nbsp;



The company had about $900 billion in assets under management and supervision — $106 billion in discretionary assets and $795 billion in advisory assets — as of March 31.



Jung was most recently head of distribution partners and liquid private markets for the Asia-Pacific region at Partners Group, where he oversaw business development and led onboarding for the firm’s wealth technology platforms.



Mark Aubrey is set to join blockchain gaming company Catheon Gaming as its co-CEO on July 11.



Aubrey joins the company from Activision Blizzard, the creators of games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft; there he worked as managing director and head of its Asia-Pacific arm. Before that, Aubrey was a marketing director at Warner Bros. Entertainment.



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Latest in Crypto Hiring: OKX, Bitget Among Companies Boosting Headcount

<div id="highlights-block_629a39dde9916" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Bitget adds managing director to help connect centralized and decentralized finance</li>
 <li>Fidelity Digital Assets looks to up hiring, while Coinbase expects to slow additions</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Crypto technology provider Fireblocks hired a former Bank of England executive as its new CBDC and market infrastructure director.



Varun Paul, who will serve on Fireblocks’ corporate strategy team, was at the Bank of England for 14 years and ultimately led its fintech hub and future of finance initiatives.



&#8220;From CBDC [central bank digital currency] developments to the tokenization of traditional financial assets, bridging digital assets and blockchain technologies to traditional institutions at scale will require strong working relationships with the central bank community,” Fireblocks Head of Corporate Strategy Adam Levine said in a statement.&nbsp;



Derivatives exchange Bitget appointed Gracy Chen as a managing director. She previously held executive roles at XRSPACE, a virtual reality technology company headquartered in Taipei.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Bitget reported its all-time high derivatives trading volume of $8.7 billion earlier this year — a 300% increase from the year before.



Chen noted in a statement that she is an “avid investor” in crypto and seeks to help Bitget connect centralized and decentralized finance, “resulting in an expansive bridge to the vast web of crypto.”



Digital Entertainment Asset (DEA), a blockchain gaming and entertainment company based in Singapore, named Tatsuya Kohrogi as its head of global business.



Known for its gaming and decentralized finance (GameFi) platform PlayMining, which allows players to mine crypto while they play games, DEA has 2.4 million players worldwide. The company was founded in 2018 and is developing play-to-earn game JobTribes and an NFT marketplace.



Kohrogi served as a partner manager at Meta (formerly Facebook), where he worked with ad agencies in Japan. Prior to Meta, he was at SoftBank, where he held investment strategy, business development, sales management and digital marketing roles during his seven years at the company.



“As we begin to expand our business across Asia, Europe and North America, we are confident each region will grow under Tatsuya&#8217;s leadership,&#8221; DEA CEO Naohito Yoshida said in a statement.



In case you missed it, Fidelity Investments’ digital asset arm said it is <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/fidelity-digital-assets-to-double-headcount/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">seeking to double its headcount</a> by the end of the year as it pushes to expand its support for assets other than bitcoin. The expansion would include hiring about 210 workers across client services, custody operations, execution services and technology building roles, a spokesperson told Blockworks earlier this week.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Others are slowing down hiring amid the crypto market downturn.&nbsp;



Coinbase Chief People Officer L.J. Brock wrote in a <a href="https://blog.coinbase.com/update-on-hiring-plans-bcedfa634989" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">company post</a> that the exchange has decided to take more “stringent measures” to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/coinbase-latest-crypto-firm-to-cut-costs-amid-market-downturn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">slow its headcount growth</a> in hopes of navigating uncertain waters.



Gemini founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss said in a Tuesday memo to employees that the company <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/gemini-joins-growing-list-of-crypto-exchanges-cutting-staff-amid-downturn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">expects to cut 10% of its staff</a> due to the ongoing crypto downturn, as well as macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.



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