Meet the women behind the world’s largest crypto exchange

It's a little-known fact that women are behind some of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

In a blog post published on May 21, Gracie Chen, CEO of crypto exchange Bitget, detailed her journey to facilitate a $4 billion transaction.

“Raised by a single mother, I was simply expected to grow up happy. Like other Asian parents, I hoped that I wasn't too pushy and that my biggest task in the future was to find a life partner. However, I was drawn to the idea of ​​directing from an early age. Since elementary school, I have actively sought every opportunity to be a leader. My desire to lead was not to manage or command others, but to create more values.”

At the age of 18, Chen received a scholarship to study applied mathematics in Singapore, and upon graduation became a TV host for China's Finance and Technology program, at which time she learned about Bitcoin (BTC), at $300, from her interviewers in 2015. :

“I started by reading the Bitcoin white paper and was immediately immersed. As a mathematician, I loved the beauty of the math. I loved how democratic the system was. Mostly, I was fascinated by the way it created a new decentralized ledger to complement the traditional centralized financial industry.

Not long after, Chen left her television career to co-found two startups in fintech and virtual reality while simultaneously enrolling in an MBA program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “What do you call a failed entrepreneur? A serial entrepreneur. And I am!”

In the year In the spring of 2022, Chen joined Bitgate after seeing an opening for a managing director role. As the current CEO, she manages over 1,500 employees.

Another such figure is Yi He, co-founder of crypto exchange Binance.

In the year He was born in 1986 to a family of teachers in a remote rural area of ​​Sichuan province in China. Despite her simple upbringing and relatively independent childhood, YHe showed a natural ability to learn quickly, finishing first in all her school exams and using her spare time to read.

In her early adulthood, she left her hometown to pursue a career in psychology in Beijing, but quickly discovered there were few prospects. People were “not interested in mental health” back then, she said, unlike now. But she developed the skills needed for communication and interaction, which became the cornerstone of her discovery when she hosted and landed a role in the 2012 China Tourism TV show.

After traveling around the country as a TV host, he met Star Shu, the founder of Okcoin – now called OKX – in 1998. In 2013, Bitcoin was still trading at $1,100. Xu was looking for a famous influencer to promote the Okcoin brand. In the year After making a small fortune from the Chinese stock bull market in 2006 to 2008, he became interested in the crypto space and, combining it with his experience as a TV host, accepted an offer to become the vice president of OkCoin.

Under his leadership, Okcoin quickly became the leading exchange in mainland China. It was also around this time that she hired her future partner, Changpeng “CZ' Zhao – who was her friend at the time – to take on the role of chief technology officer at OCoin.

CZ reportedly had a rocky relationship with Okcoin's Xu, and in In 2015, he resigned from the company. Also, he didn't seem happy about being caught up in the conflict and resigned the same year. He stayed in the tech industry for two years and in 2010 2017 is not only about doing business in China, but also influencing it globally.

At the same time, CZ published its white paper on the global crypto exchange Binance, which it featured. Realizing that CZ was the only person with the skills and character to build a global exchange in her network, she quickly signed up for the challenge, founding Binance in June 2017.

Fast forward to today, and Binance is the world's largest crypto exchange with a daily volume of $36.5 billion and total assets of $134.6 billion. Although CZ is no longer involved in Binance's decision-making or operations, he and current CEO Richard Teng have since taken over, frequently sharing their views on the future of the crypto industry.

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