Consensus Hong Kong 2025 is back, and I feel a bit disappointed while organizing and reviewing the speeches at the venue. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to interview several heads of leading exchanges and public chains, engaging in in-depth discussions and gaining valuable insights, which I would like to share here.

Recently, with the market direction being unclear and hot topics quickly rotating without continuity, Odaily Planet Daily interviewed Han Lin, the founder and CEO of Gate.io, to discuss topics such as the current stage of the crypto market and trends in vertical fields. Through the perspective of this 12-year industry veteran, we aim to provide guidance, share experiences, instill confidence, and highlight risks for participants. Han Lin also elaborated on Gate.io's focus and progress across various business lines, the listing process and behind-the-scenes work details, the value support of the platform token GT, and the origins of sponsoring the F1 Red Bull Racing team.

To present this clearly, Odaily Planet Daily has summarized the interview questions and answers as follows, enjoy~

Odaily Planet Daily: With Trump taking office, favorable policies are steadily being implemented. Currently, there is neither news stimulus nor new capital entering the market, leading to an overall stagnation period. How do you assess the upcoming market phase? Will there be a second wave of a bull market in 2025? What indicators can serve as the basis and reference for trading decisions?

Han Lin: My feeling is that the market is actually quite good.

In the very short term, it may worsen a bit during weekends and holidays. However, around November 2023, it started to improve, and 2024 will see Meme-driven trends, making the entire year look promising. This year, after Trump issues a coin, many celebrities will follow suit.

The concept of blockchain itself is dull and hard for the average person to accept, but coins, especially those with huge price increases like Meme coins, attract newcomers with interest. They will easily discover mainstream assets like Bitcoin. When risk appetite returns and shifts towards long-termism, some of the funds brought in by Meme will eventually flow back to more stable mainstream coins.

As for the future market trends, it is very difficult to predict. I believe that as virtual assets become mainstream, they will be significantly influenced by macro-political and financial events.

However, being in an exchange, the perception of market sentiment is very clear—during the bear market in 2023, it seemed that no matter what activities or promotions we did, it was hard to elicit a response from users, and the entire industry saw a significant decline in traffic. After the inscription ignited the market at the end of 2023, moving into the bull market of 2024, the sentiment was clearly high.

Now, many financial operations are shifting on-chain, and data is easier to monitor externally. For instance, just looking at the daily issuance of coins, the numbers are substantial. This aligns with the data trends of CEX.

Odaily Planet Daily: Many veteran traders and holders are looking forward to the rise of altcoins, but a broader perspective suggests that altcoins are clearly in decline. What is your view on this?

Han Lin: Gate.io started in 2013. At that time, the definition of altcoins was copy coins, such as the earliest Meme coin DOGE and some fork coins that copied code. Over a long period, only a very few top coins survive, and their preservation rate is quite poor. Especially Meme coins, which rely on trends and community consensus, experience rapid fluctuations. In contrast, mainstream coins, after significant ups and downs, show an overall upward trend.

Therefore, we do not particularly recommend novice users to participate in altcoin projects. Besides selecting targets, they can also try wealth management and other income methods suitable for non-professional users to reduce risks. For users with substantial financial experience, they can also make good use of various financial tools on Gate.io, such as contract products.

Odaily Planet Daily: Speaking of Meme, it has been a driving force for capital flow since the second half of last year. However, with Trump issuing a coin, Meme has entered the next phase. Do you think most retail investors still have ways and opportunities to participate in Meme?

Han Lin: It depends on the long and short term.

In the long term, they can participate in mainstream coins through methods like dollar-cost averaging and wealth management to earn interest.

In the short term, I must emphasize that trading requires professional skills, such as for contract trading.

For Meme, I do not recommend novices to blindly rush in; the probability of becoming a top mainstream coin is very low.

Odaily Planet Daily: By the end of 2024, various institutions predict that 2025 will be a big year for Web3×AI, but the AI Agent sector has dropped over 80% from its peak. What products or events do you think could lead to a rebound in this field?

Han Lin: The Web3 field has never lacked concepts and hype; the most important thing is to look at the real demand and the degree to which products actually solve that demand.

Gate.io is actually utilizing AI for some practical work, such as data analysis, which includes market data as well as operational data of the platform.

Some very professional quantitative institutions and traditional financial companies are using neural algorithms in traditional finance to assist in choosing trading directions. However, we are still far from being able to assist ordinary users in making trading decisions.

Odaily Planet Daily: What recent investments have you made personally, and which specific fields or directions are you paying more attention to? What advice do you have for CEX users?

Han Lin: My personal investment energy is limited, and I spend most of my time considering how to provide better services on the platform.

However, our venture capital department, Gate Ventures, focuses on ecosystem-related projects, looking at a large number of targets, such as previous L2 (to solve scalability issues), zk+chips, Crypto payments, wallets, and other infrastructure and technology innovation-driven projects.

Gate.io will provide funding support for Gate Ventures, which independently executes the investment decision-making process. In terms of collaboration, if the invested project meets the listing standards, we will also reuse the due diligence results from Ventures.

Odaily Planet Daily: Moving on to the next question, let's shift from the industry to Gate.io. What is Gate.io's overall business goal for 2025?

Han Lin: Gate.io's strength lies in the launch and completeness of product functions. Since 2013, we have supported dozens of coins, which was quite rare at that time, and we maintain an advantage in this area—continuously providing users with quality asset trading opportunities.

In terms of contracts, Gate.io has been ramping up since last year. This will be a key business focus for 2025.

The Web3 industry follows the path of traditional finance; early contract trading volumes are low but quickly surpass spot trading; moreover, the development of crypto finance is even faster. In comparison to traditional finance, it is normal for contract trading volumes to be 5-6 times that of spot trading. Gate.io has grown from a 2% market share in contract business last year to the current 5-6%, with a goal of 10% by the end of 2025.

Additionally, Gate.io is also actively developing ETF and options businesses, but these are more geared towards professional investors.

Odaily Planet Daily: Users perceive Gate.io as very sensitive to hot topics, and the speed of listing is also fast. What departments are involved in the decision-making process for listing coins, and what kind of judgment and risk control processes are needed? What is the team size and division of labor? If listing spot coins, how do you quickly gather a large amount of chips to support liquidity? Will you communicate with the team and market makers?

Han Lin: The listing department is divided into two groups, one for finding quality targets and due diligence, each with dozens of people. The project listing is further divided into two categories:

One is more traditional teams, where the due diligence group focuses on and cross-reviews the team's background, funding situation, token distribution rules, business model, risk control measures, etc., to confirm the project's long-term viability;

The other is community-driven projects, which may have already launched on DEX. The listing department will also assess community enthusiasm, user acceptance, on-chain data, chip dispersion, etc., and will provide risk warnings to users.

As for initial liquidity, tokens are usually already circulating externally, with a pre-prepared amount; for some initial projects, tokens have been airdropped to users, and the community holds enough chips.

Additionally, Gate.io has hundreds of partnered market makers. Although we do not directly connect them to projects, we will make recommendations if needed.

Odaily Planet Daily: What recent developments in product sectors outside of trading, such as wealth management, Startup, Launchpool, copy trading, "crypto circle," wallets, etc., should users pay special attention to? From Gate.io's perspective, which sector has the highest priority?

Han Lin: The entire industry has been developing rapidly during this period, especially in DEX and wallets.

Gate.io has done a lot of work in this area, and one of the earliest products we started was the wallet. We began developing a multi-chain wallet in 2018, at a time when the market had one coin per wallet, and there were few mobile options. During the DeFi Summer in 2020, Gate.io started working on DEX-related platforms and gradually shifted trading functions (Meme trading, transfers, wealth management, etc.) to wallets over the years, while integrating the two product lines, aligning with the industry's trend of blurring the boundaries between DeFi and CeFi.

Gate.io's wallet also has a unique feature that maps the addresses of various chains in the backend, allowing users to receive coins even if they fill in an address from another chain during transfers.

Odaily Planet Daily: GT has repeatedly hit new highs. What empowering operations or fundamental improvements have contributed to this? How do you attribute this?

Han Lin: GT is both the platform token of Gate.io and the native coin of GateChain.

In 2018, we aimed to create an innovative chain, not just an ordinary altcoin, and chose the direction of "user asset protection," including anti-theft and recoverability, while also being EVM-compatible and supporting DeFi applications. Last year, GateChain supported L2.

Users participating in the platform and ecosystem naturally develop an understanding of the platform token. Once they hold it, they receive daily airdrops and other benefits, seeing that Gate.io distributes profits to holders, which enhances their positive impression of GT, leading to increased holding and deeper binding, resulting in a positive cycle.

Of course, the market has its ups and downs, and buying platform tokens also carries risks. We provide risk warnings, and users must make their own judgments.

Odaily Planet Daily: Gate.io's external collaborations include both fintech and brand-oriented partnerships, such as recently becoming the official sponsor of the F1 Red Bull Racing team. How was this collaboration facilitated? Can you share some interesting stories from the initial contact to the final agreement? What is the typical conversion rate for Web3 companies advertising through traditional channels?

Han Lin: I come from a technical background, and Gate.io's previous market style was relatively low-key. At the same time, Gate.io's products had gaps in previous years that needed to be filled from scratch. You will notice that we quickly introduced innovative features like wealth management, quantitative trading, dynamic trading, and live streaming, gaining recognition from old users. There are also some tedious but important behind-the-scenes work, such as starting to do reserve proof in 2020, which allows users to judge whether the platform is misappropriating funds.

By 2024, as product functions gradually improved and new users entered globally, we began to focus on brand collaborations. For instance, in the first half of 2024, we sponsored the Inter Milan football team, as both parties shared the philosophy of "pursuing championships." In the second half, we explored the F1 field and found that F1 employs many of the latest technologies. During events like Token 2049 in the UAE and Singapore, there was some overlap between the two audiences. Racing + Crypto perfectly represents the pursuit of cutting-edge technology and finance.

Personally, I did not know much about F1 before; I initially thought some luxury car brands were more impressive, but later learned that Red Bull Racing's driver ranks first in F1. Additionally, Red Bull Racing has its own Web3 department, making communication and coordination very smooth and efficient. We reached a signed agreement in early 2025.

As for conversion rate calculations, crypto trading platforms are different from physical goods like clothing or beverages (which require seven exposures to generate customer trust). Instead, it is more about the logo appearing on jerseys, race cars, and venues, leaving an impression on sports enthusiasts and athletes. When they eventually become interested in crypto, they can delve deeper into it.

Odaily Planet Daily: For the last question, how do you view the activity of exchange owners on social platforms like X? This year, do you hope to increase or decrease your frequency of speaking out? Does your team wish to promote personal IPs, and what are the considerations behind this?

Han Lin: This matter largely depends on the personalities of the exchange owners. Some are indeed more extroverted; I come from a technical background and am more reserved. However, in this position, I have the responsibility to promote the company and help users recognize and trust Gate.io. If I were to create a personal IP and force myself to be more extroverted, it might not yield good results. So, I prefer to let it happen naturally.

Additional Reading

Last November, Interview with Gate.io CBO Kevin Lee: With the Market Booming, How Can Exchanges Become Important Gatekeepers for User Rights?

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