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 going through several cycles, seem to have reached a “consensus”: no matter what you initially set out 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 down and revenue shrank to around $3 million per month, OpenSea decisively shifted 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 soared to $2.6 billion, with nearly 90% coming from token trading. CEO Devin Finzer’s remark that “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 already shifted or is shifting towards 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 garbage.

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 towards trading,” some veteran platforms like CoinW are exploring whether there is 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 connections but shifted directly into trading, making every KOL a tradable asset, with prices set by buy-sell activity and platform fees taking a cut. This model led to rapid growth and skyrocketing fees, setting daily revenue records surpassing Ethereum within just 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 allowed platforms like Pump.fun to earn huge profits. But most trades are zero-sum, and when the market turns bearish, trading volume can drop by 90% compared to its peak.

How to find a more sustainable long-term scenario or second growth curve? The answer remains elusive.

For the entire industry, this “trade-first” approach only fosters over-reliance on short-term play, leading to homogenized competition and difficulty in cultivating genuine 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 new opportunities?

Some different attempts are emerging. This path doesn’t deny trading but redefines its role: making trading not an end but an entry point to richer participation systems. In other words, users shouldn’t only speculate on platforms; 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 enough capital and patience—first to survive, then to develop slow-to-yield initiatives like developer cultivation, community management, or connecting to real-world scenarios.

Currently, you see that such adjustments are not mainstream but are mainly attempted by veteran projects with a stable user base and solid business foundation. 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, valuable ecosystem that may take time to bear fruit.

What is 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 from transaction fees, why insist on doing slower, less immediate work? Looking into CoinW’s public discussions and strategy offers some clues.

It may relate to the background of the CoinW team. Its board member Omar Al Yousif has extensive 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 in multiple internal and public exchanges that the current “cutthroat trading” and homogenized competition are old paths in traditional finance: when all players chase the same metrics, the result is often just a pile of trash. It may seem prosperous but is actually exhausting long-term value.

For platforms like CoinW, fostering ecosystem development is not only about leveraging their stable foundation but also a strategic choice made with long-term considerations: relying solely on trading in the next cycle will be hard to maintain an advantage. The earlier they lay out value scenarios beyond trading, the better positioned they will be in industry segmentation.

How to implement value beyond trading? CoinW announced a full-stack upgrade at its 8th anniversary, which can be summarized as focusing on two strategies: “internal circulation” and “external circulation.”

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

Internal circulation means redesigning the user’s “stay path” within the platform: no longer assuming users only repeatedly trade the same assets, but extending their effective engagement time.

For example, as a trader, we usually start with spot and futures trading. But many users 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.

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

• On GemW, users can directly explore on-chain assets with low costs and barriers;
• On DeriW, which also offers perpetual trading, the transparent on-chain structure and zero Gas design encourage trying different strategies;
• On PropW, trading is no longer just about profit and loss; users’ trading skills can be regarded as a “skill” and supported with funds within platform rules, changing the way they participate.

In the short term, this design may not immediately boost trading volume, but a clear effect is: users no longer leave the platform when markets cool. When trading opportunities decrease, other ways to participate can retain attention; when new assets or features emerge, they can naturally be integrated into existing paths.

The result is that users’ psychological barriers to exploring new things are lowered, their time spent on the platform increases, and engagement becomes stickier. From this perspective, internal circulation isn’t about forcing users to “trade more,” but about making it easier for them to stay.

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

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

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

This approach is reflected in their industry collaborations, such as the flagship event WConnect, which facilitates cross-ecosystem dialogue between exchanges, developers, and project teams; and ongoing participation in regional industry events like Coinfest Asia, embedding the platform into a broader global crypto network beyond just trading infrastructure.

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 out of purely financial contexts. For example, partnering with La Liga and East Asian football tournaments, sponsoring events like TAIWAN GQ Style Fest, integrating crypto into more tangible 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 a foundation for long-term competitiveness.

Conclusion

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

As trading capabilities become more standardized, true differentiation may no longer come from higher-frequency matching 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 supports a platform’s continued growth might not be greater “fee extraction” but whether it is truly rooted in a more long-term valuable ecosystem.