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Bitget is a major second-tier global crypto exchange founded in 2018. It operates normally, publishes Proof of Reserves, and reports large derivatives volumes, but its regulatory depth remains weaker than its business footprint. Multiple regulators have warned that Bitget or related entities were not registered for certain activities, and the April 2025 VOXEL incident exposed risk-control weaknesses. Overall risk score: 5/10.
Entity type: exchange
Last updated: 2026-05-07
Bitget was incorporated in May 2018 and launched global public testing on September 1, 2018. It was originally built by Henri Chen, a Singaporean founder with a finance and engineering background from the University of Melbourne. Before Bitget, Chen worked at RBS, JP Morgan, Bohai Huamei, and later co-founded the Australian credit company BC Securities.
Bitget's operating structure centers on Bitget Limited, with BTG Technology Holdings Limited connected to derivatives activity. The group is registered in Seychelles, has a presence in the Tbilisi Free Zone in Georgia, and has described Vienna as its European compliance hub.
Henri Chen has moved into the background and rarely speaks publicly. Since 2024, Gracy Chen has been Bitget's main CEO-level public spokesperson. Before joining Bitget, she held a management role at XRSPACE in Taipei. Chief Legal Officer Hon Ng is also a major public compliance voice for the company.
Bitget's product lineup includes spot trading, futures with leverage up to 200x, copy trading, leveraged ETF tokens, Earn products, Launchpool and Launchpad, Bitget Wallet, Bitget Card powered by Visa, TradFi and stock-token products, DeriW L3 derivatives, and Onchain Stocks.
Bitget says its 2025 derivatives volume reached $8.17 trillion and that it had 120 million registered users by Q2 2025. CER.live gives it an AA security rating. Its brand sponsorships include LALIGA, MotoGP, Lionel Messi from 2022 to 2024, Juventus, PGL, Team Spirit, DOTA 2 Bali Major, Turkish elite athletes, Blockchain4Youth, and Blockchain4Her. Sponsorships do not prove solvency, but they show Bitget operates at the marketing scale of a major exchange.
Bitget has a broad map of registrations, but most of them are AML registrations or VASP registrations rather than top-tier financial licenses. This distinction matters: an AML registration is not the same as a full financial-services authorization.
Licensing map in plain language:
Bitget has not obtained a Singapore MAS DPT license, Hong Kong SFC VASP license, Japanese FSA crypto registration, New York BitLicense, Swiss FINMA approval, or a direct FCA-grade license comparable to the strongest financial-regulatory frameworks. Its compliance stack is dense, but not deep.
Lithuania's MiCA transition is a key medium-term risk. Lithuania required VASPs to transition into the MiCA CASP regime by December 31, 2025, with unlicensed operations becoming illegal from January 2026. Bitget says it is applying for MiCA authorization and has set up a Vienna compliance hub, but this report did not identify official confirmation that Bitget obtained a MiCA CASP license by the report date.
Bitget also says it completed VARA registration in Dubai at the end of 2025. VARA is a real virtual-asset regulator, and a full VASP license there would be meaningful. However, the exact category must be checked against the VARA official register. This report therefore marks Bitget's VARA status as claimed, pending independent verification.
Public regulatory warnings and alerts include Alberta Securities Commission on April 1, 2024; France AMF on April 3, 2024; Cyprus CySEC on June 21, 2024; Japan FSA warnings in 2023/2024 and an additional 2025 OTC derivatives listing for BTG Technology Holdings Limited; Japan App Store removals on February 6, 2025; Saskatchewan FCAA on July 10, 2025; and Australia ASIC on July 28, 2025. ASIC specifically warned that Bitget-related entities promoted crypto futures with leverage up to 125x to Australian investors without an Australian Financial Services Licence, while Bitget held AUSTRAC AML registration. AUSTRAC is not an AFSL.
Bottom line: Bitget has roughly a dozen registrations, but none that provide the strongest recovery framework associated with MAS, SFC, FCA, SEC-level oversight, or the broader U.S. state licensing stack used by exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.
Bitget's complaint pattern is mostly operational rather than a clear “exchange disappeared with deposits” pattern. Common complaints include account freezes, slow KYC reviews, repetitive support responses, deposit and withdrawal delays during volatile periods or new-token spikes, trading interruptions during fast markets, and copy-trading losses.
Copy trading is a central Bitget product, but high-performing leaderboard traders may use Martingale-style position adding, high leverage, or other tail-risk strategies. Followers can lose funds quickly when a strategy breaks. The risk-warning and access design is often criticized as too loose for retail users.
After the April 2025 VOXEL incident, some profitable futures users said they were closed at unfavorable prices, feeding criticism that Bitget acted as both referee and player.
Severity is medium. The complaints are recurring and systemic, but they center on operations, product design, and incident handling rather than a proven pattern of mass withdrawal freezes or asset theft. CER.live gives Bitget an AA rating, and Coin Bureau notes that Bitget has not had a publicly known major exchange-level hack. No major public class-action or organized victim campaign against Bitget was identified in the provided record.
risk_score: 5 / 10
Bitget is not a clean “scam exchange” case. It is also not a boring, heavily regulated exchange. The most accurate category is a fast-growing, product-aggressive exchange whose regulatory depth has not caught up with its business footprint.
Deductions include multiple regulatory warnings across Alberta, Saskatchewan, France, Cyprus, Japan, and Australia; the VOXEL incident, where a low-liquidity token reportedly traded more volume than Bitcoin and more than $20 million was allegedly extracted by eight accounts; weak license depth despite many registrations; structural transparency issues around the full balance sheet, UBOs, major investors, and Seychelles registration; controversial copy-trading risk design; and unresolved historical Chinese KOL claims from March 2024 about possible gambling-related police involvement, which this report treats only as a watchlist item because no official court record or later charge was identified.
Positive factors include no known major exchange-level asset theft since 2018; monthly Merkle-tree Proof of Reserves with October 2025 ratios above 1:1 for BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC; a stated 6,500 BTC protection fund and ISO 27001 certification; actual funding of VOXEL compensation; continuing compliance expansion; and some response to regulatory pressure, including Australian consumer-risk disclaimers and a public compliance roadmap.
Bitget is a medium-risk exchange: useful, liquid, and technically mature in some areas, but not backed by the hard regulatory framework that would make large balances comfortable.
Balances above $50,000 should not be kept entirely on Bitget if a user has access to more heavily regulated exchanges such as Coinbase or Kraken. Smaller active-trading balances can use Bitget as a trading venue, especially for futures depth and product variety, but users should treat it as a venue rather than a bank.
Copy trading requires strict allocation caps, stop-losses, and the assumption that leaderboard traders may hide tail risk. Users in Canada, Australia, Japan, France, and Cyprus should be especially careful because local regulators have already warned that Bitget is not properly licensed or registered in those jurisdictions.
Not based on the available evidence. Bitget is operating normally, publishes Proof of Reserves, and has no known major exchange-level hack. But it has multiple regulatory warnings and limited license depth, so it is medium risk rather than low risk.
Bitget has a FinCEN MSB registration, but that is an anti-money-laundering registration, not a full securities, derivatives, or exchange license. U.S. users should not treat it as equivalent to Coinbase-style regulatory coverage.
In April 2025, VOXEL/USDT futures on Bitget surged more than 200% in about 30 minutes. Bitget suspended trading, rolled back some activity, forced certain closures, and later pursued legal action against eight accounts that allegedly profited by more than $20 million.
Recovery depends heavily on jurisdiction. In countries where regulators have warned that Bitget is not registered, such as Australia, Japan, France, Cyprus, and parts of Canada, local legal remedies may be limited.
It is risky. Copy-trading leaders may use high leverage, Martingale-style position adding, or hidden tail-risk strategies. Followers can lose money quickly when a strategy fails.