Gate Founder Dr. Han: The crypto winter drives structural reshaping, and everything going on-chain will become the new paradigm in finance

On the Gate main stage at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival on April 21, 2026, Dr. Han, Gate’s founder and CEO, delivered an in-depth speech titled “Move Everything On-Chain.” He systematically laid out the platform’s 13-year evolution, and offered highly impactful judgments on the fundamental transformation of the global financial system: on-chain is not an option—it is the form of the financial system.

Thirteen Years of Structural Change: Evolution from Trading Platforms to an On-Chain Ecosystem

Dr. Han pointed out that since its establishment, Gate has undergone multiple key structural shifts. Starting from early digital asset trading, the platform gradually expanded into a comprehensive platform covering derivatives, asset management, and diversified services, and continues to accelerate its evolution toward an on-chain ecosystem and a multi-asset integration system. To date, Gate has served more than 52 million users worldwide, covers more than 80 jurisdictions, and manages over $10 billion in digital assets, forming a global business foundation for continuous expansion. In this process, the platform continuously adjusted its product structure and technological layout, aiming to strengthen infrastructure capabilities and promote the ongoing expansion and upgrading of its service ecosystem.

Market Reality: Crypto Winter and an Intensifying Divide with TradFi, Opening New Growth Space for On-Chain

Dr. Han noted that the current crypto market is in a cyclical adjustment phase: Bitcoin has fallen about 40% from its peak, and the overall market cap has dropped from $4 trillion to about $2 trillion, with both DEX trading activity and the number of new asset issuances declining in parallel. Meanwhile, traditional financial markets are performing strongly—gold prices are nearing a doubling, the Nasdaq is up by nearly 30%, and crude oil is up by about 15%—creating a clear divergence from crypto assets. More importantly, he emphasized that TradFi still far outstrips the crypto market in terms of market size and trading volume, with market cap more than a hundred times larger and trading volume dozens of times higher. Against this structural difference, he stressed that tokenizing traditional financial assets and bringing them on-chain (RWA) will become the core path to connect the two systems and unlock incremental space.

Core Insight: On-Chain Is the Future Form of the Financial System

In the core portion of the speech, Dr. Han emphasized that blockchain is evolving from a technical tool into financial infrastructure. He believes the significance of on-chain is not to create new asset categories, but to reshape the way assets are generated, circulated, and priced. The on-chain system brings not only improved efficiency, but also a reconstruction of traditional financial structures. With on-chainization, assets can achieve higher-frequency and more transparent liquidity, and the boundaries for trading and clearing are significantly compressed—thereby redefining the traditional intermediary-centered model.

Regarding the industry direction in the future, Dr. Han put forward an important market judgment: in the future, finance will become unified, and there will be no longer any distinction between crypto and traditional. In this context, assets that are not on-chain will be gradually priced as inefficient assets, while on-chain assets—due to higher-efficiency liquidity and accessibility—will progressively gain more advantageous market pricing and broader application space.

Strategic Layout: Reconstructing Trading Entry Points and the Liquidity System

Dr. Han said that Gate’s strategic focus is not only to promote the integration of CEX and DEX, but also to build a unified trading entry point that connects on-chain with traditional finance (TradFi). He pointed out that as RWA accelerates implementation and multi-asset onboarding, exchanges will gradually evolve into multi-asset liquidity hubs. Against this backdrop, Gate is accelerating the construction of an integrated trading system covering spot, perpetual contracts, and CFDs, and plans to launch thousands of tokenized assets to bridge the boundaries between on-chain and off-chain assets. With 7×24 trading capabilities and more efficient asset onboarding mechanisms, the platform will continuously enhance global liquidity and market depth, enabling value to flow more freely and efficiently between different asset forms, and reshaping a new trading paradigm under the integration of crypto and traditional finance.

Future Outlook: Financial Integration and the Evolution of a Global Value Network Driven by the On-Chain Ecosystem

At the end of the speech, Dr. Han reiterated his confidence in long-termism for the industry. He said that Gate will continue to strengthen multi-asset support capabilities and promote more efficient connections and collaboration between traditional assets and digital assets within the same system. He emphasized that as asset forms and trading structures continue to evolve, Gate will adopt a more open architecture to support a diversity of assets, improve the efficiency of cross-market and cross-form liquidity, and build a more extensible value-connection network within an ever-changing financial system.

About Gate

Gate was founded in 2013, and its founder and CEO is Dr. Han. It is one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency trading platforms. The platform serves more than 52 million users and supports trading of 4,500+ cryptocurrencies. As an industry benchmark, Gate was the first to achieve 100% proof of reserves, and its ecosystem includes Gate Wallet, Gate Ventures, Gate for AI, and other diversified services. For more information, please visit: Website | X | Telegram | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube