Eleven years in crypto isn’t merely an anniversary. It means navigating a number of boom-and-bust cycles, altering asset narratives, alternate failures, and the rising convergence between conventional finance and onchain markets.
At its 11-year mark, LBank reviews greater than 30 million registered customers and $23.81 billion in every day buying and selling quantity. In an unique interview with Bitcoinist, Eric He, LBank’s Group Angel & Danger Administration Advisor, appears to be like past the following scorching token to debate a extra consequential query: how an alternate can steadiness pace, entry, safety, and sturdy belief because the market turns into extra complicated.
Q. LBank is marking its eleventh anniversary. Wanting again, what’s a very powerful precept the corporate has discovered—not the largest progress quantity?
Eric He: A ship is most secure in port, however that isn’t what ships are constructed for. In favorable markets, any platform can speak about progress. The actual take a look at comes when volatility rises and confidence is fragile: can the platform hold working reliably, and may it hold danger administration forward of quantity?
Over eleven years, what customers anticipate from an alternate has modified. Early on, the questions had been easy: Is the asset out there? Can I commerce it? At the moment, customers additionally ask whether or not liquidity is actual, whether or not listings are dealt with with self-discipline, how their belongings are protected, and whether or not the platform helps them navigate a extra sophisticated market.
That’s the reason we’ve got saved evolving our product and infrastructure somewhat than treating an anniversary as a static milestone. This yr, LBank surpassed 30 million registered customers globally. To me, that isn’t a end line. It represents 30 million particular person selections throughout areas, languages, ranges of expertise, and danger appetites. The quantity that issues most is whether or not they select to stick with LBank by the following market cycle.
Q. Competitors amongst exchanges is transferring past who lists belongings quickest towards who can assist extra buying and selling use circumstances. What position ought to LBank play on this subsequent section?
Eric He: Aristotle wrote that excellence isn’t an act, however a behavior. An alternate shouldn’t be only a web page that brings consumers and sellers collectively. Throughout asset discovery, commerce execution, and danger choices, it ought to assist customers construct higher buying and selling habits over time.
The alternate was primarily a gateway. Going ahead, it must be extra like disciplined buying and selling infrastructure: attentive to crypto-native alternatives, whereas giving customers higher liquidity, higher instruments, and clearer danger context. For LBank, meaning advancing three issues directly: staying near rising crypto narratives, increasing entry to belongings related to the true financial system, and persevering with to enhance danger controls and buying and selling expertise.
We don’t imagine extra options routinely create extra worth. The target is to offer customers a coherent path. They might start with belongings they already perceive, then—as soon as they perceive the foundations and dangers—entry tokenized U.S. equities, stablecoin-related merchandise, or different eligible asset lessons. The measure of success isn’t whether or not a characteristic exists, however whether or not customers genuinely use it.
Q. On the 11-year milestone, what achievements finest signify the place LBank is right this moment? Which metrics would you like the market to concentrate to?
Eric He: Essentially the most significant achievements usually are not remoted peaks. They’re a set of indicators displaying that customers proceed to decide on the platform and that the platform itself is turning into extra succesful.
This yr, LBank reached 30 million registered customers and $23.81 billion in every day buying and selling quantity. In 2026, spot buying and selling quantity reached $16 billion, whereas whole buying and selling quantity reached $23.81 billion. Extra importantly, progress isn’t coming from one market alone. Our month-to-month TradFi buying and selling quantity reached $3 billion, whereas LBank ranked first for stock-market depth within the related market knowledge. LBank Inventory market share peaked at 27.32%, and U.S. inventory spot market share was reported at a 340% premium to the top-10 common.
The product knowledge issues, too. Copy buying and selling has reached $15 billion in capital, LBank Money has processed greater than 10 million transactions, and BK Genie has served greater than 1.5 million merchants. We’ve got allotted $70 million in whole rewards, with $15 million in cumulative Earn subscriptions and $55 million distributed by Token Splash and airdrops. Sixteen listed belongings have delivered positive aspects of greater than 100x.
None of those figures is a price judgment by itself. Collectively, they need to reply a extra helpful query: Is progress rooted in actual buying and selling demand, sturdy liquidity, and merchandise that folks truly use—not merely short-term incentives?
Q. As tokenized U.S. equities change into a brand new battleground for exchanges, what’s LBank’s core aggressive benefit on this market?
Eric He: Partnerships and distribution can create a market entry level shortly. However long-term competitiveness is dependent upon whether or not customers can execute high-quality trades as soon as they arrive. We don’t see tokenized equities as one other class to fill on a product shelf. We see them as an improve to what an alternate can provide: a path between crypto and conventional belongings that may function across the clock, with actual liquidity and clear danger boundaries.
LBank’s first benefit is execution high quality. It’s not sufficient for an asset to be technically tradable. In a BeInCrypto market-depth report, LBank ranked first for U.S. inventory spot buying and selling depth. For HOOD-related pairs, HOODON order-book depth was 4.42 instances that of Gate, HOODX was 2.23 instances Gate’s, and HOODB depth was 22.8% larger than Binance’s. That issues as a result of it reveals customers can do greater than see tokenized equities listed; they will commerce them in a market with deeper, extra actionable liquidity.
The second benefit is how these belongings hook up with the remainder of the platform. By means of initiatives involving xStocks, Ondo Finance, and bStocks, we’re increasing the vary of belongings customers can entry. However we’re equally targeted on what follows: efficient worth discovery, a transparent understanding of asset construction, and continuity throughout market hours. Tokenized equities ought to join with crypto-native liquidity, buying and selling instruments, and schooling—not sit in an remoted tab.
Our month-to-month TradFi quantity has reached $3 billion, which indicators actual demand for around-the-clock, cross-market entry. However this market should be constructed on transparency, regional availability, asset mapping, liquidity, and clear danger disclosures. Customers ought to perceive precisely what they’re buying and selling, in addition to the rights and dangers concerned.
Q. LBank has partnered with a number of IPs in recent times, most notably Pudgy Penguins. Decrypt has additionally described LBank as a extra youth-oriented alternate. What’s the strategic logic behind this IP strategy, and what does “youth-oriented” truly imply to you?
Eric He: Being youth-oriented isn’t about utilizing brighter colours or repackaging FOMO. It’s about understanding how a brand new era discovers belongings, varieties identification, participates in communities, and is sensible of complicated monetary concepts.
Crypto has by no means been only a worth chart. For youthful, culturally fluent customers, a group, a personality, or a shared language could be the entry level to a brand new narrative. That’s the context for our partnership with Pudgy Penguins. It’s not a easy emblem collaboration. Pudgy Penguins is a cultural asset that Web3-native communities already perceive. The collaboration helps make one thing summary—liquidity—extra tangible. Liquidity isn’t solely a quantity on an order e book; it may be understood, shared, and related to a collective reminiscence.
However tradition isn’t an alternative choice to product. IP can decrease the barrier to consideration and participation. The alternate nonetheless has to ship liquidity, product high quality, danger disclosures, and dependable asset safety. We wish youthful customers to enter LBank with their very own pursuits and manner of expressing themselves, somewhat than asking them to suit a standardized dealer profile. That’s the actual that means of this yr’s anniversary theme, “Come As You Are”: protect particular person distinction whereas offering each person with clear selections and the identical baseline of safety.
Q. AI is now not a standalone sector—it’s turning into a structural power throughout markets. With firms equivalent to Anthropic and OpenAI extensively seen as potential IPO candidates, capital markets, know-how narratives, and crypto are converging. How may this reshape asset provide, person decision-making, and danger administration for exchanges? How is LBank getting ready?
Eric He: AI has moved past being one other market theme. It’s altering productiveness, capital allocation, and the way data is distributed on the similar time. If main AI firms ultimately attain public markets by IPOs or different routes, customers won’t solely be an AI-themed token. They are going to be making an attempt to know completely different dangers and alternatives generated by the identical know-how cycle throughout public equities, tokenized belongings, and crypto-native networks.
That adjustments three capabilities an alternate wants. First, asset provide: exchanges have to assist credible AI-related crypto belongings and, the place rules permit, present paths to tokenized know-how publicity. However “AI” can’t change into an excuse to decrease itemizing requirements. Second, person decision-making: when narratives journey quicker than analysis, platforms ought to assist customers separate technological worth, commercialization progress, liquidity, and pure sentiment somewhat than amplify the noise. Third, danger administration: AI can enhance risk detection, anomaly monitoring, anti-phishing efforts, and market surveillance. But AI-driven automation may amplify errors, manipulation, and data asymmetry if governance doesn’t hold tempo.
For LBank, the work runs on two tracks. Externally, we’re following the asset and cross-market buying and selling demand created by the AI cycle, together with broader know-how publicity the place merchandise can be found in compliant jurisdictions. Internally, we’re making use of AI to market intelligence, product assist, and danger identification—notably to determine uncommon fund flows, account habits, and rising assault indicators extra shortly.
The boundary is obvious: AI could make data extra out there, nevertheless it can’t make funding choices for customers. It will possibly speed up danger response, nevertheless it can’t change clear guidelines, human assessment, and accountability. The system value constructing isn’t an “AI dealer” that bets for customers, however one which helps them see extra clearly, commerce with extra self-discipline, and defend their belongings extra successfully.
Q. After alternate failures, asset misappropriation, and more and more refined assaults, what particular steps is LBank taking to strengthen safety?
Eric He: Safety can’t be lowered to “belief us.” It’s a system that has to work underneath stress. The business has discovered that an alternate can solely present liquidity, execution, and international entry when asset safety and danger governance are credible first.
At LBank, safety is a platform-wide accountability, not a single group’s activity. On the infrastructure layer, we proceed to strengthen cold- and hot-wallet segregation, multi-layer authorization, abnormal-behavior monitoring, real-time danger alerts, and incident-response mechanisms. On the person aspect, the aim is to make safety extra seen at crucial danger moments with out creating pointless friction in odd use.
This yr, we additionally launched the Crypto Resilience Initiative, with CertiK and SlowMist taking part. The initiative isn’t about including a one-off scan or borrowing credibility from a 3rd occasion. It’s about transferring safety from post-incident response towards long-term resilience by steady monitoring, shared risk intelligence, incident-response workout routines, and person safety schooling. The target is to enhance each prevention and restoration when new assault strategies or excessive market situations emerge.
AI is a crucial layer in that effort. We’re strengthening AI-assisted danger identification and behavioral evaluation to detect suspicious fund flows, account anomalies, phishing exercise, and assault indicators earlier. However AI isn’t a magic phrase that may change governance. It has to work alongside human safety groups, outlined response processes, and outdoors experience. We don’t promise “absolute safety.” We’re constructing defenses that may hold evolving and could be examined.
Q. How do you see the market creating from right here? After rallies and pullbacks, why do you stay constructive on crypto?
Eric He: I might not body short-term worth strikes as a certainty. Crypto will stay unstable. Macro liquidity, fee expectations, regulation, know-how cycles, and market sentiment can all change costs shortly. But when the query is whether or not I stay constructive on crypto’s long-term route, the reply is sure. I’m, at coronary heart, a crypto believer.
That conviction isn’t based mostly on the concept costs solely transfer larger. It comes from the truth that infrastructure and actual demand are deepening on the similar time. Stablecoins are altering cross-border settlement and onchain capital effectivity. Tokenized belongings are making extra real-world worth accessible in versatile methods. AI is creating new productiveness and data-coordination use circumstances. And the demand for always-on, cross-border, verifiable monetary providers has not disappeared.
Each pullback removes some hypothesis, nevertheless it additionally forces the business to construct stronger merchandise, higher compliance practices, and extra resilient safety. I see market cycles as stress assessments, not assessments of perception. The market can rise or fall within the quick time period; the longer-term route will depend upon whether or not the business can flip technical benefits into actual, credible, and sturdy person worth. LBank’s position is to not name each turning level. It’s to supply liquidity, instruments, danger administration, and entry to rising asset lessons by each cycle.
Q. What behavioral recommendation would you provide merchants within the present market?
Eric He: I might somewhat speak about self-discipline than particular tokens or entry factors. Crypto rewards sustained studying, nevertheless it punishes individuals who deal with emotion as a method.
First, perceive the asset and the product you’re buying and selling—particularly extra complicated merchandise equivalent to leverage, perpetual futures, and tokenized belongings. Second, outline what you’ll be able to afford to lose earlier than deciding your place measurement, not the opposite manner round. Third, don’t let social-media momentum change analysis. A development is usually a helpful sign to analyze, nevertheless it shouldn’t change into your conclusion. Lastly, set a time horizon and an exit situation earlier than volatility forces you to rewrite your personal guidelines.
I stay bullish on the business, however believing in an business isn’t the identical as believing in each commerce. A mature dealer isn’t somebody who captures each rally. It’s somebody who can nonetheless be within the recreation when they’re mistaken. The platform’s position is to supply clear data, adequate liquidity, clear danger disclosures, and dependable instruments. Every funding determination ought to stay unbiased and applicable to the person’s personal circumstances; the place wanted, customers ought to seek the advice of a licensed skilled.
Q. In your anniversary letter, you outlined 4 coordinates for the longer term: globalization, safety, user-centricity, and a “super-ecosystem.” Why these 4?
Eric He: I’m cautious about end-state predictions. In an business that’s frequently repriced, saying “I don’t know” isn’t a scarcity of route. It means we don’t confuse creativeness with certainty. That’s precisely why we’d like coordinates that don’t shift with each short-term narrative.
First, globalization. Actual globalization isn’t translating the identical press launch into twenty languages. It implies that a person in a small Latin American city or on a avenue nook in Southeast Asia can entry the identical baseline of belief and liquidity.
Second, safety. It’s not a line in a whitepaper. It’s a disciplined respect for danger. On this market, danger administration should all the time transfer quicker than greed.
Third, user-centricity. Complexity ought to keep inside our programs, whereas the person receives a less complicated, smoother expertise and extra tangible safety.
Lastly, what we name the super-ecosystem: connecting the asset flows of conventional finance, the uncooked power of crypto, and the group worth of IP in order that they reinforce one another somewhat than sit in silos. These 4 coordinates don’t assure that each short-term name can be proper. They assist us hold our route when the tide goes out.
Q. Eleven years from now, how would you want customers to explain LBank?
Eric He: We don’t need customers to recollect LBank solely as a result of it listed a specific scorching asset or ran a single marketing campaign. We wish them to think about LBank after they enter a fast-moving market and wish alternative, helpful instruments, and a platform that respects danger.
If customers come to see LBank as a spot that understands crypto-native tradition, brings a wider world of belongings into a transparent buying and selling expertise, and could be trusted when it issues, then the final eleven years could have meant one thing. An anniversary isn’t the end line. It’s the subsequent web page within the work of proving that.
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