The "counter-consensus" choice of an eight-year-old exchange: Why give up easy profits and not treat trading as the end goal?

Author: momo, ChainCatcher

Many crypto builders, after several cycles, seem to have reached a “consensus”: no matter what you initially want to do, in the end, it’s better to focus on trading.

Take the former NFT leader OpenSea as an example; its transformation path is very typical. When the NFT market cooled and revenue shrank to around $3 million per month, OpenSea pivoted in October 2025, becoming a “what can be traded” all-in-one platform supporting tokens and memecoins across 22 chains.

As a result, in the first month after the pivot, trading volume surged to $2.6 billion, with nearly 90% from token trading. CEO Devin Finzer’s remark, “You can’t fight the trend,” sounds like going with the flow, but also reveals a sense of helplessness and compromise.

OpenSea is not an exception. Looking back at this bull cycle, trading memecoins became a “lifeline” for many projects. In a16z’s January report, “2 notes for crypto builders in 2026,” partner Arianna Simpson openly states that this trend is accelerating: almost every successful crypto company has shifted or is shifting toward trading.

While focusing on trading for revenue is understandable, then what? This has evolved into a “marshmallow experiment” for the crypto industry: pursuing short-term satisfaction often comes at the cost of product depth.

As Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently pointed out in a discussion on decentralized social: if the industry merely packs a speculative token into a product and claims to be “innovative,” it’s just creating corporate trash.

If all innovation ends up just to increase turnover rate, what can individuals, projects, and the industry really leave for this era?

Fortunately, as the collective begins to reflect, divergences are emerging. Amid the trend of “everyone moving toward trading,” some veteran platforms like CoinW are exploring whether there’s a longer-term, more effective path.

Divergence in Industry Dilemmas

Why is early entry into trading and solely doing trading unsustainable? Friend.tech and Pump.fun, two former star products, might answer this.

Friend.tech, once the top SocialFi platform, succeeded and failed through trading. It aimed to create social assets that are tradable, with prices set by supply and demand, and platform fees earning revenue. This model led to rapid growth, soaring fees, and even a record daily revenue surpassing Ethereum in just over a month. But once speculation faded, the social relationships had no intrinsic value, leaving no lasting users, and Friend.tech ultimately failed.

Pump.fun pushed the trading-centric model to the extreme. The rise of memecoins made platforms like Pump.fun profitable, but most trades are zero-sum. When the market turns bearish, trading volume can drop by 90% compared to peak levels.

How to find a more sustainable long-term scenario or second growth curve remains unanswered.

For the entire industry, this “trade-first” approach only over-relies on short-term gambling, leading to homogenized competition and difficulty in cultivating real long-term value. This is a key reason why this cycle’s crypto industry is criticized for lacking innovation.

But if trading alone isn’t the only path, where are the new opportunities?

Some different attempts are emerging. This path doesn’t deny trading but redefines its role: making trading not the end goal, but an entry point to a richer participation ecosystem. In other words, users shouldn’t only speculate; they should also generate value through more “consumption” and participation scenarios.

This idea is not hard to understand. Looking at traditional sectors, sustainable business models require users to naturally create value during daily use, participation, or consumption, enabling platforms to build long-term relationships and ecological resources.

However, this path is likely difficult. It requires platforms to have sufficient capital and patience—first to survive, then to develop slow-to-yield initiatives like developer cultivation, community management, or connecting real-world scenarios.

Currently, you see that such adjustments are not mainstream but are mainly attempted by veteran projects with stable user bases and solid fundamentals. For example, CoinW, an established exchange with millions of users and stable daily trading volume, has enough capital flow to support building a long-term, slow-yield ecosystem of value.

What’s the logic behind the “counter-consensus” choice?

For some crypto projects, solely focusing on trading poses long-term survival issues. But for a platform like CoinW, which can earn steadily, why bother with slower-yield initiatives? Looking into CoinW’s public discussions and strategy offers some clues.

It may relate to CoinW’s team background. Its board member Omar Al Yousif has deep experience in traditional finance and investment, currently serving as Vice Chairman of 7-E Emirates Holding and a partner at 10X Capital.

He has mentioned repeatedly—both internally and publicly—that aggressive trading and homogenous competition are old patterns in traditional finance: when all players chase the same metrics, the result is often just chaos. It may seem prosperous but actually depletes long-term value.

For platforms like CoinW, fostering ecosystem development isn’t just about leveraging their stable base; it’s a strategic “long-term thinking” move. Relying solely on trading in the next cycle makes it hard to gain advantages. The earlier they expand into other value scenarios, the better positioned they are to stand out amid industry segmentation.

How to implement value beyond trading? CoinW announced a full-stack upgrade at its 8th anniversary, mainly through two strategies: “internal circulation” and “external circulation.”

1. Internal Circulation: Making it easier for users to stay

Internal circulation means redesigning the user journey within CoinW: not assuming users will repeatedly trade the same assets, but extending their effective engagement time on the platform.

For example, as a trader, most start with spot and futures trading. But many don’t just want to “make more trades”; they also want to participate in other on-chain activities beyond market movements. CoinW aims to meet this demand without cutting it off.

With a unified account system, users no longer need separate wallets or Gas management to try more features:

• On GemW, users can explore on-chain assets directly, with low costs and barriers.
• On DeriW, perpetual trading is more transparent, and zero Gas design encourages trying different strategies.
• On PropW, trading isn’t just profit and loss; users’ trading skills can be treated as a “skill” that can be supported with platform funds, changing participation modes.

In the short term, this design may not immediately boost trading volume, but a clear effect is that users won’t leave just because market conditions cool down. When trading opportunities decrease, other participation methods can retain attention; when new assets or features emerge, they can be naturally integrated.

This reduces the psychological barrier for users to explore new things, prolongs their stay, and increases engagement. From this perspective, internal circulation isn’t about forcing more trades but making it easier for users to stay.

2. External Circulation: Moving beyond pure trading and crypto scenarios

External circulation means actively connecting the platform to a broader industry ecosystem. By linking externally, CoinW involves users and the platform in project growth and resource allocation, rather than just competing in trading.

Practically, CoinW doesn’t treat ecosystem partnerships as merely token listings or traffic swaps. Instead, it builds deeper collaborations with projects with long-term potential—offering real user access, liquidity, and infrastructure support—integrating them into a long-term ecosystem rather than one-off trading targets.

This approach is reflected in initiatives like WConnect, which facilitates cross-ecosystem dialogue among exchanges, developers, and projects; and participation in regional industry events like Coinfest Asia, embedding the platform into a broader global crypto network.

For users, this shifts the participation logic. Instead of repeatedly trading the same assets, they can get involved early in projects, using products and mechanisms to build ongoing relationships, moving participation forward in time.

CoinW is also trying to bring crypto assets into broader social contexts—partnering with La Liga, East Asian football tournaments, sponsoring Taiwan GQ Style Fest, etc.—making crypto more tangible in public scenarios.

These external actions don’t aim for immediate trading volume growth but change the platform’s role—from a simple matching engine to a hub connecting projects, users, and real-world scenes. In an industry long dominated by trading logic, this choice may not show quick results but provides long-term resilience.

Conclusion

Looking back, this industry divergence is hard to judge with just a few data points. But it at least reflects different understandings of the industry’s long-term future.

As trading becomes more standardized, true differentiation may not come from higher matching frequency but from whether a platform is willing to reserve space for value beyond trading. CoinW’s approach is an attempt based on this judgment.

CoinW’s 8th anniversary theme, “Trot On To Infinity,” is less a slogan than a stance: it doesn’t specify an endpoint but accepts that this is a long-distance race requiring patience and continuous course correction.

In a highly utilitarian market environment, this path may not be the most clever, but it offers a possibility: when the tide recedes, what sustains a platform’s growth may not be greater “fee extraction” but whether it is truly rooted in a long-term valuable ecosystem.

Disclaimer:

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment or legal advice. The services or products mentioned may not be available in all regions. Crypto asset trading involves high risk; participate only after thorough understanding of the risks involved.