Why TradFi Operators Are Flowing Into Bitget’s Universal Exchange

A handful of former Futu employees across Asia have left one of the region’s largest online brokerages for Bitget, a Seychelles-headquartered crypto exchange that calls itself a Universal Exchange. The hires are individual decisions.

The pattern is not. As traditional brokerages absorb regulatory pressure and compressed growth paths, a generation of operators trained in compliance, community building, and product design is moving into crypto at speed. Bitget is one destination. The UEX concept it sells, one account for crypto, stocks, ETFs, forex, and gold, is the reason many of these new hires give for the jump.

The Squeeze on Traditional Brokerages

Futu Holdings sits at the center of the story, founded in Hong Kong in 2012 and listed on Nasdaq in March 2019, now serving more than 29 million users through its Futu and Moomoo apps. Its largest shareholder is Tencent.

That position is being tested. In May 2026, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced the formal initiation of administrative penalty proceedings against Futu, Tiger Brokers, and Longbridge Securities. The regulator ruled the firms had illegally conducted cross-border securities, fund sales, and futures brokerage businesses targeting mainland Chinese investors without domestic licenses. The news drove the Nasdaq-listed ADRs of Futu down 39.49% to $75.47 the same day.

A two-year transition window allows existing mainland accounts to be wound down or migrated. A separate action in February 2025 saw Futu Futures fined $100,000 by the U.S. National Futures Association for failing to maintain required supervision and records. The combined effect is a thinner runway for the kind of fast-iteration growth work the new hires say they joined crypto to do.

What the Universal Exchange Promises

Bitget is the magnet. Founded in 2018, the exchange ranked in the top five globally by CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko for derivatives trading volume, and according to its own materials employs between 1,001 and 5,000 people, calling itself a Universal Exchange, or UEX, a phrase CEO Gracy Chen introduced in September 2025.

The UEX pitch, set out in the UEX terminology explainer on Bitget’s academy site, frames today’s exchange market as a trade-off. Centralized platforms are easy to use but asset-limited, and decentralized ones offer variety but are hard to navigate. UEX, the company says, combines CEX, DEX, and TradFi into a single account for trading cryptocurrencies, stocks, ETFs, forex, gold, and tokenized real-world assets.

Chen’s letter introducing the Universal Exchange pitches the model as a way to break what she called the “impossible triangle” of user experience, asset variety, and security. A Bitget and Nansen report, cited on the UEX activity hub, put $23.1B in institutional liquidity behind the concept. The exchange also runs a protection fund, valued at over $700 million according to its own page.

By the numbers, Bitget’s pitch reads this way.

• Founded: 2018
• Derivatives ranking: top five globally
• Employees: between 1,001 and 5,000
• Protection fund: over $700 million
• CEO: Gracy Chen

Seven Operators, Seven Different Doors

The new hires are not anonymous. Bitget has publicised profiles of seven former Futu staff, all using first names only, who joined from operations, content, product, creative, and advertising roles. The seven represent a snapshot of a wider pattern.

Their tenures and concerns differed. Here is how their time at Futu compared.

Most of the seven had spent their careers in the regulated rhythm of a licensed broker. The shared move came as that rhythm began to compress. For some, the trigger was a specific event.

Ethan, who worked in Hong Kong building regional business teams, said he first felt the shift when actions that used to be tried quickly on the growth side started requiring confirmation of where, and to what extent, they were feasible. He had watched Hong Kong’s Web3 scene, including exchanges like OSL and HashKey, become harder to ignore.

Lily, who ran community operations and wealth management work for over three years, said the operational actions that used to be quick in a hot market were increasingly constrained by compliance and organisational boundaries. “Many times,” she said, “the ideas weren’t the problem, but whether they could be executed, when, and to what extent.” That constraint, she added, was the daily reality for frontline staff.

What They Brought and What They Left

The skills that Futu built in them did not expire at Bitget. They were applied at faster cycles and against different users.

Myooi, the social creative who worked on Japan-market growth initiatives, said the difference was the distance between an idea and the user. In a traditional brokerage, she said, “often by the time the process finishes, the timeliness is long gone,” with creatives sometimes rejected after multiple revisions. At Bitget, ideas could be tested faster. Data came back sooner.

Joyce, the information-services specialist, saw the change in feedback loops. Content that had needed multiple approvals before release at a brokerage now showed direct response on user engagement, retention, trading, and repeat activity at Bitget. Her advice to colleagues still on the fence: “Don’t just look at short-term hype, but whether the platform has a long-term vision, an expert team, and a role that truly stretches your abilities.”

At Bitget, Vera’s role expanded quickly. She moved from a single business line into growth operations for campaigns, including activity and product operations for the CFD business. The change, she said, took her from a clearer division of responsibilities to “a more direct sense of results.” She also noted the team atmosphere was more open than at Futu, which she described as giving employees less space for innovation.

The Cost of the New Rhythm

The cost lands on the operators themselves. Abby, a product manager with years of experience designing wealth products and prior crypto experience at Huobi around 2018, summed up the pace change. A feature that might take half a year to launch at a traditional brokerage, she said, would be required to launch within 2 months at most at Bitget, with requirement analysis, solution trade-offs, cross-team communication, and review all compressed.

What attracts traditional finance professionals to the crypto industry is 24/7, global liquidity, high innovation density, and fairer tools. What they need to adapt to is no concept of off-duty, self-accountability, high volatility, and mindset management.

Cecilia, who previously handled performance advertising at Futu and now works on Bitget’s ad data product team, framed the trade-off in those terms. The cost is part of the attraction.

For Myooi, the creative pressure is real. The pace is very fast, she said, emphasising agility and results, and “sometimes when inspiration strikes, I get busy and forget to eat.” The freedom from slow approval processes is real, and the pressure to keep producing hit creative is the trade.

Why This Hiring Pattern Matters Beyond Bitget

Bitget’s hiring is a small sample. The implications sit at industry level. The seven profiles in this piece are not the only ones. They represent a wider pattern of operators leaving licensed brokerages, where compliance, process, and geographic restrictions have tightened, for exchanges, where the cost of speed is the cost of volatility and self-direction.

For traditional brokerages, the cost of losing this kind of operator is not measured in headcount but in the marketing, product, and content talent the brokerage itself spent years training. For crypto exchanges, the cost of taking them on is the institutional and cultural adjustment of a workforce that comes with a broker’s playbook. Both sides are recalibrating at the same time: the brokerage industry is shrinking its geographic footprint, and the crypto industry is absorbing the operators the brokerage industry is shedding.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is moving from traditional brokerages to crypto exchanges?

A growing number of licensed brokerage operators, especially those in growth, community operations, content, and product roles. The seven profiled in this piece, all former Futu staff now at Bitget, are representative of a wider pattern. Their functions include regional growth, community operations, financial content, social creative, wealth product design, and performance advertising.

Why are traditional brokerages losing talent to crypto?

The most cited reasons in the profiles are compressed growth paths, geographic restrictions, and the friction of compliance review. At Futu specifically, regulatory pressure intensified in 2022 when the CSRC ordered the brokerage to stop onboarding new mainland Chinese customers, and again in May 2026 when formal administrative penalty proceedings were announced. The combined effect is a thinner runway for the kind of fast-iteration growth work the new hires say they joined crypto to do.

What is the Universal Exchange (UEX) concept?

UEX, short for Universal Exchange, is Bitget’s term for a single account that combines centralized exchange (CEX), decentralized exchange (DEX), and traditional finance (TradFi) functionality. According to the company’s own academy page, the model targets what CEO Gracy Chen has called the “impossible triangle” of user experience, asset variety, and security. The exchange says it can be used to trade cryptocurrencies, US stocks and ETFs, forex, gold, and tokenized real-world assets from one account.

How does working at a crypto exchange differ from a traditional brokerage?

The profiles consistently describe three differences: cycle time, approval friction, and operating environment. One operator said a product feature that would take half a year to launch at a traditional brokerage would need to launch within 2 months at most. A creative said approvals often arrived after the trend had passed. Cecilia, now in the ad data product team, described the adaptation cost in four terms: no concept of off-duty, self-accountability, high volatility, and mindset management.

What are the biggest risks for traditional finance professionals moving to crypto?

The risks cited most often are industry volatility, faster personnel turnover, and an evolving compliance landscape. Myooi, who worked on Japan-market growth, said external voices on the industry were always divided between bullish and bearish. Cecilia noted that policy variance across countries in crypto is wider than in the more mature brokerage system. Several of the seven said their concerns eased after speaking with friends or industry professionals, or after they saw the platform’s stated long-term vision.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, or legal advice. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile, and readers should consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. Figures and quotes are accurate as of the publication date.