In an exclusive interview with FXStreet, Bitgate CEO Gracie Chen addressed one of the crypto industry’s cautionary tales: a near 90% crash of the Mantra (OM) token on April 13, 2025. OM crashed from highs above $6.00 to around $0.35 during a period of low liquidity, causing billions of dollars in market value losses.
Mantra co-founder and CEO John Patrick Mullin attributed the decline primarily to “reckless forced shutdowns initiated by centralized exchanges (CEXs) on OM account holders.”
Asked about Mullin’s claim that forced liquidations by centralized exchanges caused the crash, Chen said the incident revealed structural gaps, highlighting “poor liquidity, opaque market-maker behavior and aggressive liquidation mechanics that can hit hardest during low-liquidity hours.”
“We are using events like this to sharpen our own internal rules. That’s why we recently launched an enhanced market integrity and token accountability framework: strict standards for projects and market makers, deeper spot-risk analysis, faster growth paths, and a clear process for flagging or reporting high-risk situations,” Ched explained.
Copy trading, reserves and institutional change
The copy trading social feature is gaining momentum across all exchanges, attracting novice investors while democratizing professional strategies. However, that same convenience carries significant risks, especially at moments when the exit is delayed.
Q: Bitget’s copy trading is a flagship product, and followers may suffer losses if the exit is delayed. What does on-chain data say?
feedback: On-chain data can show wallet activities, liquidity stress, and abnormal flows, but it cannot automatically prevent slippage or delayed exits when multiple followers attempt to execute the same position at the same time. The main challenge in copy trading is congestion risk: large numbers of users react to the same signal, which can impact execution and increase spreads.
We consider copy trading to be a risk-managed product. Followers use dedicated sub-accounts or MT5-linked cfd accounts, and they can set maximum position sizes, profit-sharing caps, and stop-loss levels so that they do not blindly reflect the lead-trader’s exact exposure.
As the crypto market has moved beyond spot and derivatives, Bitgate has expanded its product suite, which currently spans copy trading, decentralized wallets, tokenized equities, and even launchpads for new projects. As said, data and information are what separate successful investors from loss-making traders. At the same time, it can lead to malicious activity and cause harm to users, especially by exploiting structural information advantages.
Q: Bitgate now offers spot, futures, copy trading, a DEX wallet, tokenized stocks, and Launchpad all under one roof. How do you ringfence a data flow to avoid structural information gain?
feedback: We enforce strict internal isolation and hierarchical access controls on data. Trading behavior, order-flow analytics and user-level signals are fragmented, so no product line can directly benefit from another’s privileged view. Governance over data use is centralized, and any cross-product analysis must go through predefined, auditable rules.
Exchanges are increasingly becoming super applications that provide services that attract both retail and institutional investors. However, the need to institutionalize platforms presents a significant challenge in balancing retail-centric and institutional-oriented needs.
Q: Over the past year Bitget’s user mix shifted from mostly retail to about 50/50 retail and institutional. What does this mean for a retail trader in terms of depth, slippage and whether the exchange is still optimized for them?
feedback: That shift has deepened order books, tightened spreads and improved price stability under normal conditions, reducing average slippage for retail traders.
The platform remains optimized around simplicity and clear risk limits. We keep the interface straightforward, put risk disclosures where users should see them, and ensure advanced tools – copy trading, futures and AI-powered setups – don’t silently push retail into risks they don’t fully understand.
push beyond proof of reserves
Proof of Reserves (POR) has become the gold standard for CEXes to demonstrate that they have sufficient assets to support user platform deposits, with most aiming for 1:1 or higher backing. However, transparency issues immediately arise, especially when exchanges show only assets while excluding liabilities. Third-party audits increase transparency through verification, but implementation remains low across the market.
Q: Bitget’s February 2026 POR showed a BTC reserve ratio of 352% and a total reserve ratio of 169%, but the POR only shows assets, not liabilities. Is Bitget moving towards full proof of solvency with third party verification of both sides of the balance sheet?
feedback: In fact, POR does not cover liabilities alone or the entire balance-sheet picture, and it is this difference that requires the industry to move towards stronger proof of solvency-style standards.
We call on the broader industry to continue improving its reporting and transparency, including clear disclosure of funding structures, how liabilities are managed, and how different products are supported on the balance sheet. Bitgate is using our current PoR framework as a solid foundation, and we will continue to enhance our own standards in line with broader expectations.
The fall of Mantra, although a wound for many, marks a turning point for the crypto industry. This prompted intense assessment from industry leaders, especially stakeholders and decision makers of centralized exchanges, to prioritize transparency, improve platform security, and protect all users from institutions to retail.
Bitcoin, Altcoins, Stablecoins FAQ
Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, a virtual currency designed to be used as money. This form of payment cannot be controlled by any one person, group or entity, which eliminates the need for third party involvement during financial transactions.
Altcoins are any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin, but some people also consider Ethereum a non-altcoin because of the forking of these two cryptocurrencies. If this is true, then Litecoin is the first altcoin built from the Bitcoin protocol and, therefore, an “improved” version of it.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to have a stable price, their value backed by the reserve of the asset it represents. To achieve this, the value of a stablecoin is pegged to a commodity or financial instrument, such as the US dollar (USD), whose supply or demand is controlled by an algorithm. The main goal of stablecoins is to provide on/off-ramps for investors looking to trade and invest in cryptocurrencies. Stablecoins also allow investors to store value as cryptocurrencies, in general, are subject to volatility.
Bitcoin dominance is the ratio of the market capitalization of Bitcoin to the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies. This provides a clear picture of the interest in Bitcoin among investors. High BTC dominance typically occurs before and during bullish rallies, with investors resorting to investing in relatively stable and high market capitalization cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. A decline in BTC dominance usually means that investors are moving their capital and/or profits into altcoins in search of higher returns, which usually triggers the explosion of altcoin rallies.
