Bitget plans U.S. market entry with or without Clarity Act, CEO says

Bitget is moving ahead with plans to enter the U.S. market regardless of whether the CLARITY Act becomes law, CEO Gracy Chen said, as the exchange revives an expansion effort it shelved after FTX's 2022 collapse and the regulatory pressure that followed. Chen said Bitget plans to establish an independent U.S.-based entity and secure money-transmitter, derivatives and broker-dealer approvals before offering services to Americans. The push extends beyond standard crypto trading: Chen said Bitget has discussed distributing tokenized traditional assets with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, while tokenized stocks have become a growing part of the company's business. She said traditional assets accounted for 20% to 30% of Bitget's spot trading volume in the previous quarter, 52% of users now hold both crypto and stocks, and its tokenized-stock products have amassed more than $100 million in assets. Bitget recently added more than 100 tokenized U.S. stocks to a unified margin system with more than 370 eligible assets through its Reality platform, which offers 1:1-backed tokenized equities and ETFs, though U.S. rules may require a different product structure. Chen said the CLARITY Act could improve regulatory clarity but she is less confident it will pass before the midterm elections. The bill has advanced after the White House accepted proposed ethics restrictions, but the Senate still needs enough Democratic support to reach the 60-vote threshold, and revised legislative text had not been released publicly as of July 22. Bitget also said on July 22 that it is not licensed or supervised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and does not target residents there, underscoring the company's strategy of keeping restricted jurisdictions separate while pursuing local approvals including a MiCAR application in Austria and expansion in Argentina.