E166: Bitget CEO From Divorced Single Mom to Running a $20B/Day Crypto Exchange

**Gracy Chen** (0:00)
I don't think everyone can be a CEO, because it's just hard. If you look at many founders, you realize, number one, they need to be really, really calm. And number two, they really need to sacrifice a lot of their personal life. For example, I don't have much privacy. I don't post any pictures of my son's face just to protect him. I don't want him to be kidnapped. And it's just crazy.

**Kevin Follonier** (0:21)
You're a single mom CEO of a 2,200-person company. How do you do that?

**Gracy Chen** (0:25)
Is it hard or requires you to sacrifice some personal life Definitely, but is it undoable? I don't think so.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:33)
Gracy Chen, the CEO of Bitget, a leading global crypto exchange expanding rapidly across markets and products, a seasoned operator driving growth since 2022 and shaping Bitget's long-term global strategy.

**Kevin Follonier** (0:46)
Give me some numbers about Bitget business.

**Gracy Chen** (0:48)
We have a daily trading volume of about 20 billion USD, 25 million users just on the exchange side. We've already listed 600 cryptocurrencies. We are actually very, very bullish on the fact that there will be more stablecoin supply and people will want to use stablecoins to trade.

**Kevin Follonier** (1:07)
What's the end game for Bitget?

**Gracy Chen** (1:08)
Our end game might be building this exchange for people to use stablecoin to trade universally important and valuable assets. And then I hope three years later we can also be listed on maybe NYSE or Nasdaq.

**Kevin Follonier** (1:23)
Where do you think women are better than men in terms of business management practice?

**Gracy Chen** (1:29)
Definitely...

**Kevin Follonier** (1:34)
Hi everyone, this is the little bit that I know none of you like that can help us make a huge difference for this show and we want to take it next.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:41)
71% of the people who regularly watch When Shift Happens have not subscribed. And so all I'd ask you if you want to make a huge difference is the following. If you've seen this show before and you like it, help me, help my team, hit the subscribe button and we'll continue to build this show for you.

**Kevin Follonier** (1:57)
Thank you. Arthur was first is not even autistic. I think he's really on the spectrum of like Asperger. I mean, there's a lot in this industry. So I'm kind of using the beginning of the podcast to for the first 10, 15 minutes to make them chill. Yeah.

**Gracy Chen** (2:16)
And I'll just turn this off. Sorry.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:19)
But I would say in the beginning we arrived, the studio was not ready yet. So I was like, cool, I have like 10 minutes to talk to him a bit. And he was just like on his sofa, sitting like a completely autistic person who doesn't want to talk to anyone.

**Gracy Chen** (2:38)
Yeah.

**Kevin Follonier** (2:38)
It was pretty weird. And then actually, I mean, actually I made him talk about, he talked about taking meth, methamphetamine to be able to like work along on everything. And in the trailer, we put a bit of that. And then we will always make the thing signed off by the team before we release anything. Right. And so we changed a few things, then they signed it off. And then when we released it, he grilled us, grilled everyone. And then he texted the person who put us in touch. And he said, I'm really disappointed. But that was about two years and a go, two years and a half ago. So we were like, man, we really did everything we could. And he said, okay, it's fine. And then he destroyed us and then he destroyed his team. And then we learned later on, because I know a bunch of people who also worked there before, and then moved on and they said, this was like a complete dictatorship. And the guy is like just screaming on everyone. So everyone is scared. And we could feel that. Actually, when we work with people, I mean, you feel it directly, right?
But that was the only bad experience, I would say.

**Gracy Chen** (3:41)
I see.

**Kevin Follonier** (3:42)
All the other ones are pretty good.

**Gracy Chen** (3:43)
Hopefully, this is good.

**Kevin Follonier** (3:44)
Hopefully, today is going to be good, too.

**Gracy Chen** (3:46)
I just checked with the producer. Do I look better in this or should I take off my jacket?

**SPEAKER_3** (3:53)
For me, I think the jacket looks really nice. OK.

**Kevin Follonier** (3:55)
Is it not going to be too hot?

**Gracy Chen** (3:57)
I'm not hot. I'm actually, yeah, in terms of weather. But I mean, just look at the camera itself. OK. OK.