BIT

BIT began as Matrixport, founded in Singapore in 2019 by Bitmain co-founders Jihan Wu and Ge Yuesheng, initially building crypto asset management, lending and Cactus Custody to bring traditional yield structures on-chain.

In August 2020 it launched Bit.com, an options-first derivatives venue that sidestepped the spot price war; within seven months it was the world's second-largest bitcoin options exchange and the first to list BCH options, trading about $71.7 billion of options in 2021.

On 2 August 2021, Matrixport closed a $100 million Series C at a valuation above $1 billion, backed by DST Global, C Ventures, K3 Ventures and Tiger Global, bringing total funding to $129 million.

From 2023 it pivoted toward real-world assets, launching Matrixdock and the short-term Treasury token STBT, then institutional tokenised gold XAUm in 2024; custody and management assets later exceeded $6 billion with monthly volume above $7 billion.

On 27 December 2025, Bit.com announced a three-stage wind-down under a group restructuring: spot ended on 31 January 2026 and withdrawals closed on 31 March 2026, a deliberate and orderly retreat from running an exchange.

In January 2026 Matrixport rebranded as BIT and refocused on custody, trading, payments and RWA, adding tokenised access to 16,000+ US stocks and ETFs; in May its BVI entity won a SIBA Type 2 licence and VASP registration, alongside a Bhutan financial services licence.

BIT launched US equity spot trading in February 2026 and within eight months added US stock margin, short selling and options, with cumulative volume across those products reaching about $4 billion; on August 26, during Bitcoin Asia, it held an investment forum in Hong Kong and disclosed more than $6 billion in assets under management at the end of Q4 2025 and over $7 billion in average monthly volume. Hong Kong stock trading went into internal testing on September 28, invite-only beta on October 5, and live trading on October 12, with the securities business rebranded as BIT Securities.

The first phase covers all Main Board and GEM stocks plus IPO subscriptions and margin trading; users need no bank account or HKD conversion, depositing and withdrawing USDT/USDC around the clock with settlement in seconds, and US and Hong Kong equities share one account system. The operating entity is BIT's wholly owned Matrix Gelephu, licensed by Bhutan's Gelephu Mindfulness City authority, while execution and custody come from Atomic Vaults Asia, an SFC Type 1 licensed broker, with users as beneficial owners. Launch promotions run to November 11, including zero commission, zero-interest IPO margin and Level 2 market data.

BIT chose the licensed route that is slowest short term and fastest long term: Hong Kong access sits with Matrix Gelephu under a Bhutanese GMC licence, execution and custody with Atomic Vaults Asia under an SFC Type 1 licence, and users hold beneficial ownership with dividends and voting rights, the part tokenised-stock wrappers cannot copy. The same logic explains why it offered stablecoin-funded US stocks in February but added real options only in July: listed options need OPRA data and OCC clearing guarantees and cannot be synthesised on an internal ledger, and being 118 days early bought a full compliance chain. The base is growing too, with monthly turnover above 7 billion dollars and 6 billion dollars of custody and managed assets, while Deloitte expects Hong Kong IPO proceeds of about 387.9 billion Hong Kong dollars in the first three quarters of 2026, up 112 percent, which lands subscription and margin demand on its fee schedule. The constraint is not product but finding another licence in every market.

Jihan Wu, co-founder and chairman, holds dual bachelor's degrees in economics and psychology from Peking University (2009), co-founded Bitmain with Zhan Ketuan in 2013 as CEO and co-founded Matrixport (BIT) in 2019 as chairman.

John Ge, co-founder and CEO, graduated in business administration from Hangzhou Dianzi University in 2013, joined Bitmain as investment director in 2014 and co-founded Matrixport (BIT) with Wu in 2019 as CEO.

Cynthia Wu, founding partner and CCO, started in the digital-asset institutional line, helped build Matrixport early and leads business development, institutional clients and ecosystem collaboration.

Sheldon Liu, CTO, started in fintech and trading-system R&D and owns BIT's overall technology architecture for trading, custody and risk systems.

Wayne Chin, Chief Compliance Officer, started in compliance and AML framework building and handles BIT's compliance build-out and regulatory engagement across multiple jurisdictions.

Most of the senior team came through the Bitmain and Matrixport system, with engineering, compliance and commercial reporting lines.

BIT applies its VIP1 schedule to spot trading, charging a 0.08% maker fee and a 0.09% taker fee, and spot orders placed from leverage accounts are charged at the same tier.

A BIT taker purchase of 1 BTC nets 0.9991 BTC after the 0.09% fee, while micro-swaps below 10 USDT execute at real-time market prices.

BIT holds a Singapore major payment institution licence for digital payment token services (March 2025), a Bhutan financial services licence (July 2025), a British Virgin Islands virtual asset service provider registration (March 2026) and a Swiss licence to manage collective assets (2024).