Looking for value catchers in the crypto bull market, what is the value-added logic of Gate.io’s platform currency GT?

Author: Nancy, PANews

In this round of crypto bull market with obvious market differentiation, in addition to Bitcoin's solo performance, a few tracks such as MEME and AI Agent have significantly amplified the market's popularity due to the wealth effect, but there are a lot of stories of survivor bias behind these popular narratives. In contrast, as the crypto market becomes more mainstream and compliant, crypto projects with practical application scenarios and real value drive are becoming more and more important targets for investors, such as platform coins.

Recently, the platform currency GT of the long-established centralized exchange (CEX) Gate.io has repeatedly hit new historical highs. This impressive price performance is not only the value accumulation brought by its diversified business model and innovative initiatives, but also a microcosm of the rapid growth of the exchange.

GT prices hit new highs, and the platform currency has multiple value empowerments

Value has always been a core topic that has been repeatedly discussed in the crypto world. It largely determines whether the protocol/platform can continue to attract users and capital, thereby forming a strong network effect. The more value is captured, the more defensible the platform is.

Exchanges are one of the core players in the crypto-financial game, with strong cash flow and sustainable business models, and have great value capture potential. As the "face" of the exchange, platform coins are not only a magnifying glass to measure the value of the platform, but also can effectively feed back the platform's combat capabilities, becoming a powerful weapon to enhance its market competitiveness and defense capabilities.

According to Gate.io market data, the platform currency GT has repeatedly hit record highs in 2024, with a strong increase of more than 300% throughout the year, far exceeding the mainstream assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. As of January 22, the latest data shows that the price of GT has exceeded US$23, setting a new record high. This strong price trend also directly demonstrates Gate.io's strong competitiveness in the market.

Gate.io achieves continuous value empowerment mainly through two ways: first, it improves the actual use value of the platform currency through a variety of application scenarios; second, it effectively reduces the market circulation through a repurchase and destruction mechanism, thereby enhancing its scarcity and long-term value.

Specifically, GT has many usage scenarios on the Gate.io platform, including transaction fee discounts, margin payments, VIP level upgrades, Startup project participation, and airdrop rewards. For example, users can use GT to pay transaction fees, and enjoy a discount of up to 50%, thereby reducing transaction costs and increasing investment returns; users can upgrade their VIP levels by holding GT, unlocking more trading privileges and benefits; GT holders can also participate in high-yield financial products with priority, such as GT mining products that have accumulated more than 20,000 participants; users holding GT can also vote in platform project launch decisions, etc.

It is worth mentioning that GT holders can also participate in Gate.io's Startup high-quality project new launch activities. According to Gate.io, in 2024, Startup will exclusively launch 652 projects, with a total airdrop value of nearly 30 million US dollars, and the cumulative airdrop amount exceeds 120 million US dollars. Compared with 2023, the total value of the platform's airdrops and the number of participants have both increased significantly, with the total value of airdrops increasing by 90.95% and the number of participants increasing by 474.27%. This growth trend fully confirms the significant increase in Gate.io's product demand for GT.

It can be said that these diverse application scenarios provide GT holders with rich user rights and interests, greatly stimulating users' enthusiasm and activity, thereby promoting the increase in GT market demand and further driving the continued growth of its value.

Moreover, repurchase and destruction are the conventional weapons of exchanges. This change in supply and demand can have a direct impact on the price of platform coins and is also a microcosm of performance strength, but each company has different frequencies, execution strengths and methods. According to data disclosed by Gate.io, as of the third quarter of 2024, the total amount of GT has been reduced by about 58.06% from the initial 300 million, and the cumulative destruction amount is about 170 million, with a value of more than 340 million US dollars.

In addition, as the native asset of Gate Chain, GT can be used to pay network transfer fees, PoS mining rewards, ecological governance, etc., and is used in diversified application scenarios such as DeFi, NFT, infrastructure and metaverse. With the continuous expansion of the Gate Chain ecosystem, the increase in usage scenarios and user needs will also continue to enhance the actual value of GT.

From product innovation to market capture, the key "weapon" for building the value of platform coins

Future growth space is also one of the key indicators to measure the value prospects of platform coins. According to the 2024 annual report released by Gate.io, its number of users has exceeded 20 million, a year-on-year increase of 234% compared with 2023; the total transaction volume is as high as 3.8 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 120%. Behind this rapid growth is Gate.io's diversified strategic layout through product innovation, trend capture, asset security, brand building and traffic expansion, which not only enhances the market competitiveness of the platform, but also lays a solid foundation for the long-term value growth of the platform coin GT.

User-oriented product iteration

Real needs are the key to product success. As we all know, the key to creating a popular or even explosive product is to "focus on users". Deeply understanding and meeting user needs can easily gain user recognition and loyalty, and create a differentiated competitive space for itself. As an established exchange, Gate.io will continue to polish and innovate its products in 2024 to meet users' diversified trading needs and efficient trading experience.

In terms of product innovation, Gate Startup optimizes VIP levels, increases airdrop shares, launches new coin mining and task squares to increase users' opportunities to participate in high-quality projects and obtain airdrops; the quantitative fund launched by Gate.io achieved an annualized return of more than 20% in the first year, and attracted a large number of high-net-worth investors with its innovative low-risk, high-return strategy and flexible redemption mechanism; the real-time copy trading products and trading robot products launched by Gate.io have attracted a large number of users; the Gate Earn product line has achieved substantial growth due to its high returns, multiple products, and good user experience. For example, the daily fund size of Yubibao soared by 185%, and the number of new users increased by 205%. After the introduction of multiple innovative functions such as multi-currency pledge and Yubibao asset pledge, the year-end loan volume of Gate.io's mortgage loan function exceeded US$3.6 billion, a 14-fold increase from the beginning of the year. In terms of trading experience, Gate.io has optimized the trading system, tripled the spot trading capacity, significantly shortened trading delays, and significantly improved the user experience; Gate Web3 Task Plaza gathers information on popular airdrop projects, providing users with a one-stop aggregation activity with a quick path for airdrop interaction tasks, issuing $1.6 million in airdrop rewards and attracting more than 2.3 million participants.

Capture market trends and potential targets in a timely manner

In addition to diversified products, the launch of new assets is an important factor for exchanges to compete for traffic and shape their competitiveness. In 2024, Gate.io focused on MEME coins and pioneered the innovation zone, launched more than 500 currencies and deeply integrated more than 40 on-chain data analysis dimensions to help users quickly capture market hotspots. The product has accumulated more than 400,000 trading users and a transaction volume of more than US$1 billion. What is more worth mentioning is that the Gate.io Innovation Zone has also brought a lot of very considerable wealth effects, including the world's first TRUMP, as well as popular MEME coins such as DOGE, Neiro, and PNUT, which have achieved an astonishing increase of up to 100 times. In order to further promote the MEME ecosystem, Gate.io also launched MemeBox, the core hub for MEME information release and trading, the special fund MEME Gateway Grant, and launched Gate Pilot to accelerate the launch of MEME coins.

At the same time, Gate.io also actively participates in the construction of the TON ecosystem. In addition to establishing cooperation with ecological projects, it also took the lead in launching the Gate Mini App and Gate Wallet Mini App. Currently, the monthly active users of these two applications exceed 2.55 million and 1.4 million respectively, and are showing a sustained growth trend.

These initiatives demonstrate Gate.io's ability to discover high-quality targets and its keen insight into market hotspots, thus becoming an effective means of acquiring incremental funds and users.

Looking for traffic growth points from all directions

As users pay more and more attention to asset autonomy, and assets such as inscriptions, MEME, and AI Agents become popular, more and more liquidity begins to migrate to the chain, and wallets have become the focus of competition among exchanges and the traffic entrance for expanding users. Gate Web3 Wallet already supports more than 80 public chains, the total amount of assets on the chain has exceeded US$27 billion, the Swap/DEX transaction volume has exceeded US$32 million, and the number of connected dApps has increased by dozens of times. At the same time, Gate Web3 Wallet has also attracted a large number of users to participate, with the number of new wallet addresses exceeding 61 million, a year-on-year increase of 33 times compared to 2023.

In addition, with limited crypto-native users, Gate.io also focuses on education and social networking to gain a larger incremental market. For example, Gate Live can provide users with multi-dimensional and in-depth market analysis, and even launch a summary function in combination with AI, providing users with a more efficient way of learning. In 2024, Gate Live brought together more than 6,400 top industry analysts and received nearly 20 million views; Gate Learn and Gate Research can create a comprehensive learning and research platform for global blockchain enthusiasts, attracting millions of users; Gate dynamics with social functions can increase the stickiness of existing users while gaining incremental users, and now has more than 500,000 visiting users.

Compliance and security go hand in hand

As cryptocurrencies become mainstream and the global regulatory system is increasingly improved, compliance has become an inevitable trend. Gate Entities has made significant progress in compliance in many places around the world, including successfully submitting MiCA license applications through Malta entities, acquiring licensed institutions Sheer Markets in Cyprus, acquiring Japanese licensed exchange Coin Master, obtaining VARA's in-principle approval for Gate Technology FZE's VASP license in the Middle East market, and obtaining Argentina VASP registration, etc., covering multiple business lines such as spot, contract, custody, lending, and fiat currency channels.

In the dark forest of cryptocurrencies full of risks, security is always the core issue that users are most concerned about. Gate.io has been continuously optimizing the platform's fund security mechanism to build a solid security line for users. Since the implementation of the reserve proof plan in 2020, audit data as of January 17, 2025 showed that the total value of Gate.io's overall reserves has reached US$10.328 billion, setting a record high and ranking fourth in the world. Among them, the reserve rates of mainstream cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are as high as 123.06% and 112.04%; at the same time, Gate.io's excess reserves also continued to set a record high, increasing significantly to US$2.296 billion.

Multi-dimensional brand building philosophy

Marketing is not only a competition of products, but also a competition for users' mental cognition. In the current era of information explosion, more and more brands are using multi-dimensional and diversified marketing strategies to expand their brand awareness.

Gate.io also expands its brand influence through global offline events, sponsorships and charity events. For example, Gate.io became the official jersey sleeve sponsor of Inter Milan in 2024, and its brand image frequently appeared at the San Siro Stadium, Serie A and the Champions League. Gate Charity launched more than 60 public welfare projects worldwide in 2024, providing support in education, medical care, environmental protection and other aspects.

These innovative marketing strategies have opened up a broader space for Gate.io's brand development. Especially in the Internet era, traffic has become the lifeline of platform development. Through precise customer acquisition conversion and effective user growth strategies, the platform's growth and market share can be increased more rapidly.

The platform currency is a direct window to measure the value management effect of the exchange. Gate.io has created more commercial value and added value space for itself through key paths such as diversified product layout, all-round ecological expansion and strong brand building, which has also become the confidence for the platform currency GT to continue to reach new heights. As the mainstream process of cryptocurrency accelerates, platforms such as Gate.io will usher in more construction space and market opportunities, bringing more possibilities and long-term investment potential to the platform currency GT.