In the ever-changing cryptocurrency market, each round of bull and bear transitions accelerates a reshuffle in the CEX market, keeping the landscape of this sector in dynamic flux. In this bull market, the CEX sector is evolving from the initial three major players to a more competitive landscape, with Gate.io, a well-established trading platform founded over 11 years ago, maintaining a robust development momentum through the ups and downs, and becoming a key player that cannot be ignored at the table.
In fact, focusing on Gate.io's hard power, it is currently one of the best platforms in terms of spot and contract depth, with spot strength second only to Binance, reserves exceeding 10 billion USD, and excess reserves of 1.8 billion USD, leading the industry in excess reserves just behind Binance. Additionally, Gate.io's website traffic ranks in the global TOP 5, making it one of the trading platforms with the best user base.
The reason Gate.io is favored by traders, aside from the foundation of an established platform, a good trading experience, and a high level of security, is its ability to continuously bring wealth effects to investors with its platform token GateToken (GT) at its core.
GT: The Ever-Appreciating Golden Shovel
GT is the platform token of Gate.io and is also the native token of the GateChain network. With the ongoing development of the Gate ecosystem, the GT token has been on a steady upward trend. From the same period last year to now, GT has increased by over 200% this year, continuously breaking previous highs since entering December, and has maintained its status as a quality investment.
Of course, if you hold GT and participate in Startup mining in each round while continuously reinvesting, you will find that under the gold standard yield of over 200% this year, you will also gain considerable coin-based returns and airdrop rewards, with value growth across multiple dimensions amplifying your returns exponentially.
Startup Mining
In fact, it is well known that Gate.io has the largest number of spot currencies globally and is the fastest platform to list small coins and capture hot trends. To allow users to benefit from these newly listed assets, Gate.io launched the Startup feature, which is similar to a Launchpad service. For projects listed in the Startup section, users can participate in new projects at preferential prices or conditions while providing traffic support and early financing for the project parties.
In June of this year, Gate.io launched the Startup mining feature, allowing users to directly stake GT tokens in this section to receive airdrops of the corresponding tokens from the listed Startup projects. The airdrop will be allocated based on the amount of GT tokens staked by the users. In addition to the airdrop rewards of Startup project tokens, users participating in GT staking will also receive staking interest based on a certain annualized yield.
Thus, Startup mining is essentially a threefold benefit:
- The appreciation of GT itself
- Airdrops of Startup project tokens
- Staking interest on GT
From June 12 to December 5, the Startup mining model launched a total of 42 rounds. If I staked GT in the first round of Startup mining on June 12 (when the price of GT was 8.517 USDT), and at the end of each mining round, I exchanged the obtained Startup airdrops for GT (not reinvesting in the pool), and staked the interest from each round of GT together in the Startup mining pool for compound interest, this process would continue.
By the end of the last round on December 5, the number of GT tokens obtained from the Startup airdrop would reach 215.6, while continuous compounding staking would yield a final total of 1.215 GT (with an APY of approximately 49.24%), resulting in a total of 216.8 GT. Based on the price of GT at 12.65 USDT on December 6, the value of the GT tokens we hold would reach 2742.52 USDT.
Initially, we only invested 1 GT (8.517 U) and only compounded the staked portion of GT. In half a year, we earned a profit of 2742.52 U, achieving a value growth multiple of about 322 times. If we continuously reinvest the GT obtained from the Startup airdrop into the Startup mining pool, the aforementioned profits could multiply further.
In fact, looking at the Startup mining product itself, compared to chasing Meme coins for unknown income from risks, Startup can provide more stable and secure long-term income (even surpassing many Meme investment returns). After all, GT is backed by the Gate.io platform, which has put significant effort into market cap management, benefiting GT holders from multiple dimensions. Compared to some fixed-term financial products, Startup mining is more flexible, allowing for withdrawal at any time without a lock-up period.
Startup mining is attracting more and more users to become GT investors and long-term holders, providing a solid foundation for the accumulation of GT's value. Of course, from the perspective of the GT token itself, with the ongoing development of the Gate ecosystem, there is still a strong long-term upward expectation.
The Upward Momentum of GT
For cryptocurrencies, there are typically two ways to drive their price increases: one is to continuously enhance their essential demand, leading to rising market demand and promoting value appreciation; the other is to continuously destroy and reduce market circulation, concentrating value. For the GT token, it has both essential demand and ongoing destruction.
Essential Demand
First, from the perspective of essential demand, the GT token itself is a multifaceted asset, playing a very important role as a platform token on Gate.io, while also being the core ecological asset of the GateChain network.
As the platform token of Gate.io, GT has a wide range of application scenarios: it can be used for margin trading, fee deductions (for spot trading, leverage, futures, wealth management, lending, etc.), and to enhance VIP levels (enjoying fee discounts, Startup airdrops, exclusive customer service, and events), with fee discounts of up to 50%. Relying on Gate.io's deep trading depth and large user base, the demand for holding GT is strong.
In the Startup section, GT holders can enjoy new project subscriptions, exclusive airdrops, token mining, and high-return opportunities. Particularly, the wealth effect of Startup mining is significant, becoming a key driver for the continuous rise of GT, attracting more and more users to hold GT.
As the functional token of GateChain, GT can be used for network payments, on-chain fee burning, and supporting Web3 applications, while also possessing PoS functionality, with on-chain yields as high as 10%, far exceeding ETH's 3%. With the continuous upgrades of GateChain (including trading rollback protection, Layer 2 data layer protocols, etc.), the application scenarios and value foundation of GT will continue to expand and deepen.
Destruction
GT itself is also a highly deflationary large token, with a total supply of only 300 million. Gate.io repurchases and destroys 15% of its platform revenue every quarter (the higher the platform revenue, the greater the repurchase and destruction effort), which is quite substantial. Currently, over 174.1 million GT have been destroyed, accounting for 58.06% of the total supply, with the circulating supply now below 100 million, making the remaining GT increasingly precious.
On the other hand, the on-chain fees of GateChain will continue to be burned, which means that as the GateChain ecosystem continues to grow, the rate of destruction and deflation of GT will further increase.
Overall, the circulation and destruction mechanisms of GT are similar to those of BNB. From a fundamental perspective, Gate.io has reserves exceeding 10 billion, being the first publicly reserved platform with excess reserves of 1.8 billion USD, second only to Binance. With a large number of spot currencies, good depth, and high trading volume, its spot strength is second only to BNB, earning it the nickname "Little Binance."
If we estimate GT's price based on platform user numbers and trading volume compared to Binance, a conservative estimate would place GT's price at 1/10 of BNB's, which would be around 70 USD if BNB is at 700 USD. Currently, GT is only 13 USD, indicating that GT's price is severely undervalued, making opportunities to see this price increasingly rare, even as we approach 2025.
Why is GT the most worthy token to hold in the platform token sector?
Of course, from the perspective of the platform token sector, with so many platform token investment options available in the market, why does GT have the highest investment potential and price appreciation potential? Let's explore a few aspects.
First, in terms of market capitalization, GT's market cap is currently only 1.7 billion USD, making it one of the smallest platform tokens among all major exchanges, while most platform tokens have market caps above 3 billion USD. However, Gate.io's fundamentals and empowering aspects are not weaker than those of these platforms, and its layout efforts are even greater, so GT's market cap of 1.7 billion USD is somewhat low.
From the perspective of scarcity, GT and BNB are the only two platform tokens that are 100% released to users (not considering permanently locked insurance funds) and are long-term deflationary. BNB's total supply is 200 million, and it has been reduced to around 140 million through continuous deflation and repurchase. GT has a similar deflation mechanism to BNB, but with a higher deflation rate; GT has already been reduced from a total supply of 300 million to 96 million (with quarterly destruction, the destruction rate is as high as 58%), and its destruction rate will further accelerate with the ongoing promotion of Gate.io's Startup and continuous repurchase and destruction. Therefore, while both BNB and GT are good investment choices in the platform token sector, GT's lower market cap and greater deflationary force give it a more obvious upward advantage.
Compared to other small-cap platform tokens, GT's 100% circulation and transparent records mean it is safer with no risk of price dumping. Furthermore, Gate's more comprehensive and rapid expansion, focusing on emerging global markets, makes GT more dynamic and capable of maintaining upward momentum.
In summary, GT is undoubtedly the most worthy asset to hold in the platform token sector.
GT Earnings Review
Finally, let's review the earnings from GT.
If I started holding 1000 GT on New Year's Day 2024, when GT was $4.7 each, these GT would be worth $4700.
If I held them until now, based on the gold standard, at the current price of GT at $13 each, the profit from just holding would be ( $13-$4.7 )*1000= $8300.
If I participated in GT mining and Startup Mining during this period, conservatively calculating at an annualized rate of 12%, I would earn 100012.812%=$1536.
Additionally, if I participated in the Startup airdrop for new coins, conservatively calculating at 16% annually (which is actually much higher), I would earn 100012.816%=$2048.
Thus, our total net earnings would be: $8300+$1536+$2048=$11884, and the current value of our assets would be $16584, all achieved without any complex operations, just by staking.
In 2025, Gate.io will continue its development and Startup mining, and will continue to replicate the wealth myth of 2024.