The "counter-consensus" choice of an eight-year-old exchange: Why give up easy profits and not treat trading as the end goal?

Author: momo, ChainCatcher

After experiencing several cycles, many crypto builders seem to have reached a “consensus”: no matter what you initially set out to do, it often ends up being about trading.

Take the former NFT leader OpenSea as an example; its transformation path is quite typical. When the NFT market cooled and revenue shrank to around $3 million per month, OpenSea pivoted in October 2025, becoming a “comprehensive platform” where anything can be traded, supporting tokens and memecoins across 22 chains.

As a result, in the first month after the pivot, trading volume surged to $2.6 billion, with nearly 90% coming from token trading. CEO Devin Finzer’s remark that “you can’t fight the trend” sounds like going with the flow, but also reveals a sense of helplessness and compromise.

OpenSea is not an exception. Looking back at this bull cycle, trading memecoins became a “lifesaver” for many projects. In a16z’s January report “2 notes for crypto builders in 2026,” partner Arianna Simpson openly states that this trend is accelerating: almost every successful crypto company has shifted or is shifting toward trading activities.

While focusing on trading for revenue is understandable, what’s next? This has evolved into a “marshmallow experiment” for the crypto industry: pursuing short-term satisfaction often comes at the cost of losing product depth.

As Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently pointed out in a discussion on decentralized social media: if the industry merely stuffs a speculative token into a product and calls it “innovation,” it’s just creating corporate garbage.

If all innovation ends up just to increase turnover rate, what can individuals, projects, and the industry really leave for this era?

Fortunately, as the collective begins to reflect, divergences are emerging. Amid the trend of “everyone moving toward trading,” some veteran platforms like CoinW are exploring whether there’s a longer-term, more effective path.

Divergence in Industry Dilemmas

Why is early entry into trading and solely doing trading unsustainable? Friend.tech and Pump.fun, two former star products, might hold the answer.

Friend.tech, once the top SocialFi platform, succeeded and failed through trading. It aimed to create social connections but pivoted directly to trading, turning each KOL into a tradable asset, with prices set by buy/sell activity and platform fees taken as profit. This model led to rapid growth and skyrocketing fees, setting a record for daily revenue surpassing Ethereum within just a month. But once speculation faded, the social relationships had no intrinsic value, and no users remained. Friend.tech ultimately failed.

Pump.fun pushed the trading-centric model to the extreme. The rise of memecoins allowed platforms like Pump.fun to earn huge profits. However, most trades are zero-sum, and when the market turns bearish, trading volume can drop by 90% compared to its peak.

The question remains: how to find a more sustainable long-term scenario or a second growth curve? The answer is still elusive.

For the entire industry, this “trade-first” approach only fosters over-reliance on short-term gains, leading to homogenized competition and a lack of genuine long-term value. This is a key reason why this cycle’s criticism of crypto’s lack of innovation is so prevalent.

But if trading alone isn’t the only path, where are the new opportunities?

Some different attempts are emerging. This path doesn’t deny trading but redefines its role: making trading not an end but an entry point into a richer participation ecosystem. In other words, users shouldn’t only speculate on the platform; they should also generate value through more “consumption” and participation scenarios.

This approach is not hard to understand. Looking at traditional sectors, sustainable business models require users to naturally generate value through daily use, participation, or consumption, enabling platforms to build long-term relationships and ecosystem resources.

However, this path is likely difficult. It demands that platforms have enough capital and patience—survive first, then develop slow-to-yield initiatives like developer cultivation, community management, or connecting to real-world scenarios.

Currently, you mainly see this adjustment among established projects with a stable user base and solid operations. For example, CoinW, an old exchange with millions of users and stable daily trading volume, has enough capital flow to support building a long-term, valuable ecosystem that may take time to show results.

What’s the logic behind the “counter-consensus” choice?

For some crypto projects, solely focusing on trading threatens long-term survival. But for a platform like CoinW, which can earn steadily from trading, why would it choose to pursue slower-yielding initiatives? Looking into CoinW’s public discussions and strategy offers some clues.

This may relate to CoinW’s leadership background. Its board member Omar Al Yousif has extensive experience in traditional finance and investment. He is currently Vice Chairman of 7-E Emirates Holding and a partner at 10X Capital.

In multiple internal and public exchanges, he has mentioned that the “race to trade” and homogenous competition are old tricks of traditional finance: when all players chase the same metrics, the result is often just a pile of trash. It may seem prosperous but actually depletes long-term value.

For an established platform like CoinW, fostering ecosystem development is not only about leveraging its stable foundation but also a strategic “long-term thinking” move: relying solely on trading in the next cycle makes it hard to gain an advantage. The earlier it invests in value scenarios beyond trading, the better it can carve out a leading position amid industry segmentation.

How to implement value beyond trading? CoinW announced a full-stack upgrade at its eighth anniversary, which can be summarized as focusing on two strategies: “internal circulation” and “external circulation.”

1. Internal circulation: making it easier for users to stay

Internal circulation means redesigning the user’s “stay path” within the platform: no longer assuming users only repeatedly trade the same assets, but extending their effective engagement time.

For example, as a trader, most of us start with spot and futures trading. But many don’t just want to “make more trades”—they also want to participate in other on-chain activities beyond market movements. CoinW aims to meet this demand without cutting it off.

Under a unified account system, users no longer need separate wallets or Gas management to try more features:

For instance, on GemW, users can directly explore on-chain assets with low costs and barriers; on DeriW, which also offers perpetual trading, the on-chain structure is more transparent, and zero Gas design encourages trying different strategies; on PropW, trading is no longer just about profit and loss, but users’ trading skills can be regarded as a “skill” that can be supported with platform funds, changing the way they participate.

In the short term, this design may not immediately boost trading volume, but a clear effect is: users no longer leave the platform just because market conditions cool down. When trading opportunities decrease, other participation methods can still attract attention; when new assets or features emerge, they can be naturally integrated into existing pathways.

The result is that users’ psychological barriers to exploring new things are lowered, their time spent on the platform increases, and engagement becomes stickier. From this perspective, internal circulation isn’t about forcing users to “trade more,” but about making it easier for them to stay.

2. External circulation: expanding beyond pure trading and crypto scenarios

External circulation means actively connecting the platform to a broader industry ecosystem. By linking externally, CoinW involves users and the platform in project growth and resource allocation, rather than just competing at the trading layer.

Practically, CoinW doesn’t treat ecosystem partnerships as merely coin listings or traffic swaps. Instead, it builds deeper collaborations with projects with long-term potential. The platform provides real user access, liquidity, and infrastructure support, while projects are integrated into a long-term ecosystem rather than one-off trading targets.

This approach is reflected in its industry cooperation methods, such as the flagship event WConnect, which facilitates cross-ecosystem dialogue between exchanges, developers, and project teams; and ongoing participation in regional industry events like Coinfest Asia, embedding the platform into a broader global crypto network—not just trading infrastructure.

For users, the participation logic shifts. Instead of repeatedly trading the same assets, they can get involved early in projects, using products and participation mechanisms to build ongoing relationships, moving participation earlier in time.

Meanwhile, CoinW is also trying to bring crypto assets out of purely financial contexts. In sports, partnering with La Liga and East Asian Football Championships; in culture, sponsoring events like TAIWAN GQ Style Fest—bringing crypto into more tangible public scenes.

These external actions don’t aim for short-term trading volume growth but change the platform’s role—from a simple matchmaker to a hub connecting projects, users, and real-world scenarios. In an industry long dominated by trading logic, this choice may not show immediate results but provides a foundation for long-term competitiveness.

Conclusion

Looking back, this industry divergence is hard to judge with just a few data points. But it at least reflects different understandings of the industry’s long-term future.

As trading becomes more standardized, true differentiation may not come from higher-frequency matching but from whether a platform is willing to reserve space for value beyond trading. CoinW’s approach is an attempt based on this judgment.

CoinW’s eighth anniversary theme “Trot On To Infinity” is less a slogan and more an attitude: it doesn’t specify an endpoint but assumes this is a long-distance race requiring patience and continuous course correction.

In a highly utilitarian market environment, this path may not be the most clever, but it offers a possibility: when the tide recedes, what supports a platform’s continued growth might not be greater “fee extraction” but whether it is truly rooted in a long-term valuable ecosystem.

Disclaimer:

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment or legal advice. The services or products mentioned may not be available in all regions. Crypto asset trading involves high risk; please fully understand the risks before participating.