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Dragonfly invests $10 million in derivatives exchange Bitget

Quick Take

  • Dragonfly Capital has invested $10 million in Bitget as the derivatives exchange looks to grow its spot and earn products.
  • The news come just a few weeks after Bitget bought a controlling stake in wallet operator BitKeep, adding millions of users.

Dragonfly Capital, the San Francisco-based crypto venture firm, announced a $10 million strategic investment in Bitget, the fast-rising crypto derivatives exchange.

The deal comes in a busy period for Bitget, which acquired crypto wallet BitKeep in March after investing an additional $30 million in the startup. BitKeep claimed to be Asia’s largest crypto wallet with 9.5 million users, while Bitget — a Seychelles-registered exchange founded in 2018 — had eight million users before the deal was signed.

Founded in 2018, Bitget serves customers mainly in Asia, Latin America and Europe. Best known as a futures trading venue, it was ranked as a top three derivatives exchange last July in a Boston Consulting Group report.

The contest for derivatives volume has since been blown wide open thanks to the sudden collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX late last year. FTX accounted for as much as a quarter of open interest across Ethereum futures before it imploded in November, according to The Block Research data. Since then, Binance has become all the more dominant, boasting close to 40% of open interest in Ethereum futures.

CoinGecko, the analytics site, places Bitget fifth among derivative exchanges ranked by open interest and trade volume. The exchange currently logs 24-hour open interest of about $2.4 billion. 

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Bitget is planning to double down on expanding its product set, according to today’s announcement. It will use the $10 million capital injection from Dragonfly to continue expanding into spot trading and yield-generating products, and to grow its launchpad initiative — which helps early-stage token projects get off the ground.

The money will also be used for “global initiatives” to try to get more people to buy into crypto, the announcement said. Bitget has already struck marketing deals with soccer star Lionel Messi and Juventus, the Italian club, over the past two years. There are also plans for educational campaigns to help drive adoption. 

“Except for the cash inflow, what will benefit us more from the Dragonfly partnership is their crypto savvy and insights. Together, we will be able to discover more growth opportunities and contribute more to the sustainable growth of our industry,” Gracy Chen, Managing Director of Bitget, said.

Dragonfly is one of the crypto sector’s most active venture investors. It raised $650 million for its third fund in April last year.


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Ryan Weeks is deals editor at the The Block, focused on fundraising, M&A and institutional trends in the crypto space, among other things. He is particularly interested in investigative work — so please send tips! Ryan previously worked at Financial News, Dow Jones as a fintech correspondent in London. Prior to that, he wrote for several different publications, including Sifted, AltFi and Wired. Beyond journalism, Ryan is a keen reader and writer. He enjoys all things active, especially running, rugby, climbing and tennis.

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