Bitget Widens Its Reserve Proof as Universal Exchange Grows

Bitget’s chief legal officer used the exchange’s eighth anniversary on September 18, 2026, to widen Proof of Reserves from four assets to 19. Hon Ng said the platform now serves more than 125 million users. It is expanding from crypto derivatives into tokenized equities, commodities and other markets under a Universal Exchange plan.

The letter ties those new markets to a wider proof, a protection fund that averaged about $382 million in August 2026, and a security standard written with BlockSec. Growth, Ng wrote, cannot be split from the duty to verify it.

Hon Ng Ties Security to the Universal Exchange

Eight years ago Bitget was a crypto derivatives exchange, Ng wrote in Hon Ng’s eighth-anniversary open letter. The product is now sold as a Universal Exchange, or UEX, a single account for crypto, tokenized equities, commodities and other global markets. Bitget launched with spot trading in 2018 and added USDT-margined futures in 2019. The UEX label arrived at the seventh anniversary in September 2025.

That shift, Ng argued, changes what users should expect. Greater access has to come with stronger systems around it, and those systems have to grow with the platform. The anniversary marketing theme is “8uilt for Perfect Trades.” Ng’s own line is shorter: “Built for Trades.”

As users gain access to more assets and markets, the scope of what they can independently verify should grow as well.

Hon Ng, Chief Legal Officer, Bitget eighth-anniversary letter

He placed Proof of Reserves, account security and market surveillance on the same page as licences. The through-line is blunt. Every expansion in what the platform offers also expands what it needs to protect, verify and account for.

19 Assets Now Sit Inside the Monthly Proof

Bitget introduced Proof of Reserves in December 2022, weeks after the FTX collapse, and has published a snapshot every month since. Users get Merkle Tree checks so they can test whether their balances sat inside a given snapshot. The stated floor is a 1:1 reserve ratio. Ng said the average ratio has stayed above 120%.

The 46th report, for September 2026, recorded a total reserve ratio of 135%. The 45th report, for August 2026, had stood at 122%. On September 17, 2026, the exchange said coverage would move from four cryptocurrencies to 19 assets.

PROOF OF RESERVES, MONTH BY MONTH

The new set is BTC, USDT, ETH, LTC, LINK, XRP, USDC, DOGE, BNB, SOL, ADA, NEAR, XAUT, TAO, SUI, ONDO, HYPE, PI and USDGO. On the upgraded page, users can see a reserve ratio and a user-asset total for each name, plus how holdings sit across public chains. Personal Proof of Assets now follows the same 19 names, with Merkle hashes and snapshot files still available for anyone who wants to check the math.

Gracy Chen, Bitget’s chief executive, said users should not have to take the firm’s word for it. Proof of Reserves has been part of the firm’s framework for nearly four years, she said, and verification has to expand as the assets people hold become more diverse.

The Protection Fund Moves With Bitcoin’s Price

Reserves answer whether tracked user assets are backed. They do not, by themselves, pay for a hack, a frozen chain or a gap in a product the snapshot does not cover. Bitget set up a separate Protection Fund in 2022 with an initial commitment of $300 million, described as a backstop for extreme cases.

In August 2026 that fund’s average valuation was about $382 million, Ng wrote. Bitget’s August Protection Fund report said the pool is supported by 5,500 BTC, so the dollar figure moves with bitcoin. It bottomed at $345.3 million on August 1 and peaked at $441.5 million on August 27, staying above the original $300 million pledge all month.

THE AUGUST 2026 PROTECTION FUND

• Holdings: 5,500 BTC held apart from the Proof of Reserves user-asset snapshot.
• Average value: About $382 million across August 2026.
• Range: $345.3 million on August 1 to $441.5 million on August 27.
• Original pledge: $300 million when the fund launched in 2022.

A fund that is almost all bitcoin will look fat in a rally and thin in a slide, even if the coin count does not change. That is a useful second layer when bitcoin is the risk. It is a weaker match for tokenized stocks, gold and forex sitting in the same account.

Tokenized Stocks and Gold Share One Account

The security letter only makes sense against the product Bitget spent the past year shipping. A September 14, 2026 company note said that at the peak, non-crypto assets made up 40% of total trading volume, and that both TradFi perpetual contracts and CFDs had surpassed $10 billion in daily volume. Chen called UEX a bet on crypto and traditional markets converging.

The same note said one in four new Bitget users now starts with rToken, the firm’s tokenized-stock product, which passed $100 million in assets under management in five weeks and has logged more than 3 million cumulative transactions. Company pages now put the tokenized book at 500+ stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and metals such as gold.

PRODUCTS LOADED ONTO THE SAME STACK

• Stock perpetuals: Bitget launched stock perpetual contracts as part of the UEX push, letting users hold leveraged equity exposure inside a crypto account.
• Listed options and quanto: US stock options and Hong Kong stock Quanto contracts were added in the past year, widening the book beyond spot tokens.
• rToken: The tokenized-stock line passed $100 million in assets under management in five weeks, and one in four new users now starts there.
• CFDs and API: Open API access now reaches gold, forex, stock indices and crude oil beside crypto, so a bot can hit both books without a second broker.

Institutional client net assets were up 45% in the second quarter of 2026 against the end of 2025, the company said, while core active market makers rose from 90 to 248 firms. The eighth-year contest, KCGI 2026, carries a 3 million USDT prize pool. The feed around those campaigns is loud. The quieter problem is that a derivatives desk with extra tabs still has to keep those tabs from infecting one another.

Licences Cover 10 Markets, and Singapore Is Absent

Ng listed registrations, licences and approvals in Argentina, Australia, El Salvador, Georgia (Tbilisi Free Zone), Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and the UK. That is a footprint, not a single rulebook. He said there is no one regulatory model everywhere Bitget operates, so the firm has to meet the standards of individual markets.

On the same corporate blog as the letter, Bitget also posted a notice that it is not licensed, approved, registered or authorised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and that Singapore is a prohibited country under its terms of use. The anniversary text does not linger on that gap. It does list KYC, KYB, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring and AML and CFT controls for crypto platforms as the daily work of a multi-market shop.

Account tools sit under that same heading. Users can turn on two-factor authentication, FIDO2 and WebAuthn passkeys, anti-phishing codes and device controls, with withdrawal checks, anomaly detection and fraud systems behind the login. Earlier in 2026 the firm launched a Market Integrity and Token Accountability Framework to watch listed assets, project teams and market makers for abnormal wallet activity, manipulation and thin liquidity. Where it flags trouble, Ng wrote, the desk can add warnings, restrict or freeze accounts, halt trading or delist.

BlockSec Wrote Isolation Rules for Shared Margin

UEX, Ng said, means crypto, tokenised stocks, commodities and other assets share one trading environment, and the platform has to account for different market structures and risk profiles at once. That is why Bitget has been working with BlockSec, a blockchain security firm, on a UEX Security Standard. The joint report, released February 9, 2026, set out five core UEX security benchmarks: verifiable solvency, multi-asset risk isolation, data and privacy protection, AI-driven dynamic monitoring, and application and infrastructure defence.

Chen said the move to universal exchanges changes the nature of security risk, and that controls have to work at system level rather than asset by asset. Yajin Zhou, BlockSec’s co-founder and chief executive, put the same point in harder terms. Off-chain stocks and ETFs, he said, blow out the old coin-custody perimeter.

When you combine crypto-native assets with stocks, ETFs, and other off-chain instruments, the security boundary expands dramatically. Platforms must prove asset transparency, ensure pricing integrity, and secure off-chain dependencies to the same standard as on-chain systems.

Yajin Zhou, Co-founder and CEO, BlockSec, on the UEX Security Standard

FIVE BENCHMARKS IN THE FEBRUARY REPORT

• Verifiable solvency: Regular Proof of Reserves and a separate protection fund, treated as measurable floors rather than slogans.
• Multi-asset risk isolation: Caps, concentration limits and separate structures for TradFi products so a shock in one book does not empty another.
• Data and privacy: Controls for the larger permission surface that appears when one login reaches stocks, gold and coins.
• Dynamic monitoring: Real-time watch, offensive testing and incident drills with BlockSec, plus fund tracing after a hit.
• Infrastructure defence: Application and network hardening aimed at failures that can ripple across a unified margin account.

Zhou has spent the past year arguing, including in a BlockSec CEO on DeFi security discussion, that security and compliance now sit in the same shop. The February report is that idea applied to a broker that still clears like an exchange. Unified margin is the feature users want. It is also the pipe through which a bad gold print, a stale stock feed or a token unwind can travel.

What a Merkle Snapshot Still Leaves Unproven

A 19-name proof is wider than a four-name proof. It is still a snapshot of named coins and tokens, not a full picture of a book that now includes options, CFDs and tokenized equities. XAUT, Tether’s on-chain gold, made the list. A US stock option did not. The 135% September ratio and the 122% August ratio describe covered assets on those dates. They do not price the extra markets Ng says the platform must now protect.

EIGHT YEARS ON THE CLOCK

1. 2018: Bitget.com launches with crypto spot trading.
2. 2019: USDT-margined futures go live, and the firm becomes a derivatives shop.
3. December 2022: Monthly Proof of Reserves begins, with a 1:1 floor and Merkle checks.
4. 2022: The Protection Fund launches with a $300 million pledge, later held as 5,500 BTC.
5. September 2025: Bitget coins the Universal Exchange label at its seventh anniversary.
6. February 9, 2026: Bitget and BlockSec publish the UEX Security Standard.
7. September 17, 2026: Proof of Reserves coverage is lifted from four assets to 19.
8. September 18, 2026: Ng’s letter sets the ninth-year test as security, transparency and standards, not cake.

The anniversary crowd on X filled with trading wishes and prize-pool tickets. The harder question is still the one the February report asked. If stocks, gold and coins share an account, the proof has to cover isolation, not only a pretty reserve ratio. Bitget has now named 19 assets, published a 46th monthly snapshot at 135%, and kept a 5,500 BTC fund above $300 million. The ninth year is whether those layers hold when the extra tabs start to move together.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Bitget’s Proof of Reserves a Full Financial Audit?

No. Bitget’s own reserve materials say a ratio above 100% is the position captured in a given snapshot of covered assets, and should not be read as a full financial audit or a guarantee of future solvency. The 135% September 2026 figure and the 122% August 2026 figure are those snapshots, not an accountant’s sign-off on the whole Universal Exchange book.

How Can Users Check That Their Own Funds Sat in a Snapshot?

Bitget’s personal Proof of Assets tool lets a user test whether a holding was included in a reserve snapshot, using Merkle Tree verification, published hashes and downloadable snapshot files. That self-check now runs across the same 19 assets as the platform-level page, and the interface flags names that are still outside a given audit so a blank result is not mistaken for a pass.

When Did Bitget First Call Itself a Universal Exchange?

Chen introduced the Universal Exchange label at Bitget’s seventh anniversary in September 2025, a year before the eighth-year security letter. The 2026 product list (stock perpetuals, US stock options, Hong Kong stock Quanto contracts, rToken and CFDs) is the first full year of that branding, which is why Ng’s letter treats verification as something that has to grow with the book.

What Is XAUT on Bitget’s 19-Asset Proof List?

XAUT is Tether Gold, an on-chain token backed by gold, and Bitget named it among the 15 assets added to Proof of Reserves on September 17, 2026. It is the clearest example of a traditional-market instrument that can sit in a Merkle snapshot because it lives on a public chain, unlike a CFD or a stock option that still depends on off-chain feeds.

Why Does the Protection Fund’s Dollar Value Jump Inside a Month?

Because the fund is 5,500 BTC, its dollar valuation tracks bitcoin’s price rather than a cash account. Bitget’s August 2026 report priced bitcoin between $62,773 and $80,268 that month, which is why the same coin pile printed $345.3 million on August 1 and $441.5 million on August 27 without a stated change in the 5,500 BTC count.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of Bitget’s published anniversary letter, Proof of Reserves figures and related company statements. It is informational only and is not investment advice, trading advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any cryptocurrency, tokenized stock, CFD or other product. Readers should consult a qualified financial adviser or licensed broker before placing funds on any exchange or trading venue. Reserve ratios, fund valuations, licence lists and product names reflect the cited company materials as of the dates given in this piece and can change with later reports, market prices and regulatory actions.