Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Wenser ( @wenser 2010 )
Today, an article titled Please all trading platforms immediately stop promoting contract experience funds to college students has aroused heated discussions in the market.
The article detailed how some CEXs used the contract experience bonus model to attract new college students. The market had different views on the incident. Some people thought that this was a deceiving people into entering a casino, while others thought that there was nothing wrong with it and it was just a business behavior. Although the article did not name any specific names, many users still made speculations, and some CEX platform spokespersons also came forward to clarify and respond.
Odaily Planet Daily will sort out the ins and outs of this incident in this article for readers reference.
Cause of the incident: A tweet exposed the chaos of attracting new users in the industry
The incident began with a tweet.
On April 13, Bruce Xu, co-founder of the Chinese Ethereum community ETHPanda and LXDAO, posted a post on the X platform, saying: I just confirmed a fact after chatting with students yesterday: some CEXs will provide students with contract experience funds, which cannot be withdrawn. The profits are yours. If you make more than a certain amount of money and post a screenshot on your Moments, you can get extra rewards. Is it right to cultivate gambling addiction from college students? Its disgusting. 🤮 There is no bottom line.
BruceXu tweet details
Subsequently, an article titled Please all trading platforms immediately stop promoting contract experience funds to college students came into being, which is intended to call on major CEXs to pay attention to methods and approaches in the process of attracting new customers, and not to use extremely risky things such as high-multiple contracts as bait to induce college students to engage in crypto transactions, so as to avoid personal property damage and other situations.
CEX responds: One party directly admits fault; the other party seeks evidence
After the incident, some community users directed their criticism at two major platforms: Bitget and Bybit.
A Bitget spokesperson was the first to respond. Xie Jiayin, the Chinese director, said : In response to the media articles proposal that major trading platforms stop promoting contract experience funds to college students, and the campus ambassador program that Bitget launched in February, Bitget made the following statement:
1. About the Campus Ambassador Program: Bitgets Campus Ambassador Program aims to promote blockchain knowledge and provide internship opportunities, and does not encourage contract trading or issue contract experience bonuses. The program was launched on February 18. Due to user misunderstanding that it was related to contract rebates, Bitget was quickly offline worldwide on the morning of February 19, and all applications during this period were rejected.
2. Adhere to principles and refuse inducement: Bitget has never distributed contract experience funds to students in any form. This is Bitgets bottom line. Social supervision is welcome. If such behavior is found, you can take a screenshot and report it. Bitget will deal with it seriously and give a maximum reward of 1,000 USDT to the effective reporter.
3. Cooperation with universities is limited to popular science and employment: Bitgets cooperation with universities focuses on Web3 popular science, internships and employment guidance, such as the 2025 campus recruitment (28 people have been hired), Zhejiang University Hackathon, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Web3 sharing session.Bitget has always supported industry self-discipline and actively responded to initiatives. On this basis, Bitget will launch the Green Campus Plan to help college students understand Web3 and explore the future in a healthier way. We welcome your supervision and suggestions.
A student who participated in Bitgets promotional activities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology also appeared in the comment area and said : I hereby declare that BG absolutely does not have any form of contract experience money distribution in this event. This is purely a rumor for Bitget . Regarding the Campus Ambassador Program announcement circulated on the Internet, Xie Jiayin added : The relevant announcement was only online for 16 hours and was quickly removed.
Bitget’s previous announcement
Compared with Bitget, Bybits response was more intense. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said in the KOL [子时] comment area that there was no evidence for the claims of promoting contract trading in schools, legal reporting OKX wallets and charging listing fees. These claims were all groundless rumors. He emphasized : The cryptocurrency circle is so chaotic because there is no evidence and rumors.
Afterwards, someone in the comment section posted Bybit’scampus ambassador recruitment announcement released on September 25, 2024 , as a question to Ben Zhou’s first point that “Bybit promotes contract trading in schools.”
Bybit Campus Ambassador Recruitment Announcement Partial Information
Follow-up: Most people are opposed to it, while a few people think that this move needs to be discussed.
As the controversy continues to spread, more and more people are joining the discussion on whether exchanges should use contracts to attract college students.
Most crypto KOLs and market users believe that this move is to attract new users through derivatives, which is gambling in the guise of finance. Crypto KOL Crypto Fearless , former founder of Chain News and current founder of Bodl Liu Feng , and SlowMist founder Yu Xian have all expressed their opposition and criticism of this behavior. This is also the current mainstream view in the market.
In addition, some people have expressed different opinions.
Kay Capital, a crypto KOL, said in a post , The result of the medias call for contract exchanges not to harm college students was a PR and clarification of the position of campus ambassador, which did not affect the continuation of the incident. In addition, he added: Its nothing more than the market has no incremental growth, and these companies have returned to their old business of attracting new customers. The righteous way is to use delta neutral to get the trial bonus like Lu Tiehui, and spread the methodology of neutral lure, rather than asking drug dealers not to sell drugs. Drugs mean that the 125x perpetual contract is essentially a very professional product that should not be provided to retail investors at all.
ChainFeeds co-founder Pan Zhixiong reposted the above article and said : I just found out yesterday that Shanghai TVs Five Star Sports Channel is actually teaching how to participate in sports lottery, how experts predict, how to calculate odds and other teaching content. It can be seen that the two bloggers are more inclined to the view that platform is neutral, there is no right or wrong in tools, and individuals are responsible for themselves.
Crypto KOL Hua Jiao also commented : Some roads must be taken. College students do not gamble on contracts, but also play digital treasures, play cs go to gamble on accessories, and gamble online, Duolecai, Beijing Racing, Shishicai, and Fenfencai. This directly exposed the cruel reality.
Today’s controversial storm has now come to an end. As for whether the major CEXs will be able to introduce corresponding control mechanisms for “college student contract trading” in the future, we will wait and see.
