Bitget is a Seychelles-registered crypto exchange, founded in 2018, that has published a cryptographic Proof of Reserves every month since December 2022 and backs user funds with a Protection Fund that hit a record $779.7 million in July 2025. It is not, however, a licensed exchange in the UK or the wider EU — as of August 2026 it markets to Britain through an FCA financial-promotion approval route rather than direct authorisation, and its EU arm’s application for a full MiCA license was still pending.

Key takeaways

  • Proof of Reserves runs monthly. Bitget has disclosed reserves every month since December 2022 — a 42-report streak by June 2026, with a 127% total reserve ratio that month, verifiable through its open-source MerkleValidator tool.
  • The Protection Fund is large but discretionary. Seeded at a $300 million benchmark, it reached a record $779.7 million in July 2025 — but it is Bitget’s own reserve, not deposit insurance like the FDIC or the UK’s FSCS.
  • Bitget isn’t licensed in the UK or EU yet. It reaches British users via an FCA-approved financial promotion route, and Bitget EU’s application for a full MiCA license in Austria was still under review as of July 2026.
  • Australia’s regulator issued a formal warning. ASIC alerted investors on 28 July 2025 that Bitget offers crypto derivatives to Australians without an Australian Financial Services licence.
  • Fees are competitive; copy trading is the differentiator. Spot trading costs 0.10%/0.10% (maker/taker), dropping to 0.08% when paid in BGB, Bitget’s native token, alongside a heavy platform focus on copying other traders’ positions.

What is Bitget?

Bitget is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange offering spot trading, leveraged futures, and — its signature feature — copy trading, where users can automatically mirror the positions of professional traders in exchange for a share of the profits. The company says it serves more than 120 million users worldwide, according to its own company profile published via CoinMarketCap.

The exchange has been led by CEO Gracy Chen since May 2024, after she joined as managing director in 2022. Bitget’s ecosystem extends beyond the exchange itself into Bitget Wallet, a non-custodial Web3 wallet, and BGB, its native token, which in 2025 was repositioned as the gas and governance token of Morph, an Ethereum layer-2 network Bitget helped build — the company transferred 440 million BGB to the Morph Foundation in September 2025, immediately burning half.

By trading volume, Bitget ranks among the top handful of global exchanges — CoinGecko data reviewed in early August 2026 put its 24-hour spot volume at roughly $12 billion, trailing Binance and OKX but ahead of most other venues.

Is Bitget safe? Proof of Reserves and the Protection Fund explained

“Safe” for a crypto exchange really means two separate questions: is it solvent (does it actually hold the assets it says it holds), and are you protected if something goes wrong anyway. Bitget’s answer to the first question is stronger than its answer to the second.

On solvency, Bitget has published a Merkle-tree-based Proof of Reserves (PoR) every month since December 2022, letting any user cryptographically verify their own balance is included in the total using Bitget’s open-source MerkleValidator tool. By its June 2026 report, that streak reached 42 consecutive months — among the longest of any major exchange — with a total reserve ratio of 127% across core assets, meaning reserves exceeded user liabilities. That ratio has moved around through 2026 (it read 169% in the February 2026 report), which is normal as asset prices and user balances shift, but it has stayed above the 100% threshold needed to fully cover deposits in every report reviewed for this article.

Bitget also runs a Protection Fund, a self-funded pool meant to cover users in the event of a hack or “black swan” security incident. It launched with a stated benchmark of $300 million and, according to Bitget’s own disclosures, climbed to a record $779.7 million by July 2025. That is a meaningfully larger buffer than most rivals maintain — but it’s important to understand what it isn’t: it is not government-backed deposit insurance, it is not held by an independent trustee, and Bitget itself decides when and how it gets used. That distinction matters most for UK and EU users, who — unlike bank customers protected by the FSCS or an equivalent EU deposit guarantee scheme — currently have no statutory compensation scheme covering crypto exchange failures at all.

Bitget’s track record: past incidents worth knowing

Bitget has had a couple of notable operational incidents. In October 2024, BGB experienced abnormal price fluctuations, and Bitget committed publicly to compensating affected users. In April 2025, the exchange flagged abnormal trading activity in its VOXEL/USDT perpetual futures market and restricted the accounts involved rather than letting the exposure spread. Neither event was a hack or loss of customer custody funds, and both were disclosed rather than buried — which is a genuinely useful signal, separate from the PoR numbers, for judging how an exchange behaves when something goes wrong.

Is Bitget regulated? Licensing status in the UK, EU and Australia (2026)

This is where Bitget’s story gets more complicated, and it’s the part most fee-and-features reviews skip.

Can UK residents legally use Bitget?

Bitget does not hold full UK authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority. Since 8 October 2023, the FCA’s financial-promotions regime has required any firm marketing cryptoassets to UK consumers — including overseas exchanges — to route those promotions through one of a few lawful channels: being FCA-authorised itself, being FCA-registered under the anti-money-laundering rules, qualifying for an exemption, or having its marketing approved by an FCA-authorised “section 21 approver.” Global platforms like Bitget typically use the s.21 approver route rather than direct authorisation, which is why the exchange can legally advertise to and onboard UK users today without appearing on the FCA’s list of fully authorised firms.

That arrangement is due to change. Parliament made the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) Regulations 2026 on 4 February 2026, bringing activities like safeguarding cryptoassets and arranging crypto deals fully within the FCA’s remit. Applications for full FSMA authorisation open on 30 September 2026, and the new regime is expected to take effect on 25 October 2027 — at which point exchanges serving UK customers will need genuine FCA authorisation, not just an approved promotion.

Bitget’s MiCA license application in the EU

Across the wider EU, Bitget-linked entities hold lighter, national-level virtual-asset-service-provider registrations in countries including Lithuania, Poland and Italy, but as of mid-2026 it did not hold the bloc-wide Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) license required under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework — the regime we cover in detail in our look at MiCA’s crackdown on unlicensed European crypto firms, which has already pushed the vast majority of the region’s exchanges out of business or offshore.

Bitget is trying to close that gap: its EU arm filed a CASP application with Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) and is building a Vienna hub, led by Oliver Stauber, a former Bitpanda and KuCoin executive, to serve as its regulated EU base. CEO Gracy Chen publicly confirmed the Austrian filing on 17 June 2026. As of late July 2026, that application remained under review and unapproved — a contrast with, say, Ripple, whose payments arm secured a CASP license through Luxembourg, a move we broke down in Ripple’s MiCA CASP license explained. Bitget EU has said it will not offer regulated services in the EEA until the license comes through.

The ASIC warning in Australia

On 28 July 2025, Australia’s securities regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), issued a formal investor alert stating that Bitget and related entities were offering crypto-asset futures products to Australians without holding an Australian Financial Services licence — meaning those users have no access to Australia’s standard dispute-resolution and client-money-protection rights. ASIC noted Bitget had since added consumer warnings to its site and app clarifying it is not licensed by ASIC and that its services aren’t intended for Australian residents. Bitget also does not serve US customers at all; the exchange restricts access from the United States entirely and operates in roughly 150 other countries, with mandatory identity verification (KYC) for full account functionality.

Bitget fees and the BGB token

Bitget’s headline fees sit in line with the rest of the large-exchange field. Spot trading costs 0.10% for both makers and takers at the standard tier, dropping to 0.08% if you pay fees in BGB — a 20% discount, with deeper cuts available at higher-volume VIP tiers. Futures trading is cheaper on the maker side and pricier on the taker side, at 0.02%/0.06%. Crypto deposits are free (beyond standard network fees), and withdrawal costs vary by coin.

Copy trading is the feature that actually differentiates Bitget from a plain order-book exchange: users allocate capital to “elite traders,” whose positions are then mirrored automatically, with profits split between the copier and the trader being copied. It’s a meaningfully different risk profile from manual trading — you’re delegating position sizing and timing to someone else’s track record, so past performance disclosures and drawdown history are worth reading closely before allocating.

Should you use Bitget?

Bitget clears the solvency bar better than most exchanges its size, thanks to a genuinely long, verifiable Proof of Reserves streak and a large, if discretionary, Protection Fund. Where it falls short — for now — is formal regulatory status in the markets where scrutiny is tightest: no full UK FCA authorisation, no EU-wide MiCA license yet, and an active regulatory warning in Australia. None of that makes Bitget unusable, but it does mean UK and EU users should treat it the way you’d treat any offshore platform: assume you’re relying on the exchange’s own reserves and reputation, not a government-backed safety net, and size your exposure accordingly — particularly on leveraged products like the perpetual futures covered by platforms such as Hyperliquid, where regulatory frameworks across the industry are still catching up to product design.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bitget a legitimate exchange?

Yes, in the sense that it is a large, operating exchange with a long, independently verifiable Proof of Reserves record and no history of losing customer funds to a hack. It is not, however, fully licensed in the UK, the EU, or Australia as of August 2026, so “legitimate” and “regulated” are not the same claim here.

Does Bitget have a UK licence?

No. Bitget is not on the FCA’s list of fully authorised UK firms. It currently markets to UK consumers using the FCA’s section 21 financial-promotion approval route, a lawful but lighter-touch arrangement than direct authorisation. The FCA’s new full authorisation regime for crypto firms opens for applications on 30 September 2026 and is due to take effect on 25 October 2027.

Does Bitget have a MiCA license?

Not yet. Bitget EU filed an application for a full MiCA Crypto-Asset Service Provider license with Austria’s Financial Market Authority, publicly confirmed by CEO Gracy Chen on 17 June 2026, but that application was still pending as of late July 2026. Some Bitget-linked entities hold lighter national VASP registrations in countries like Lithuania, Poland and Italy in the meantime.

What are Bitget’s trading fees?

Standard spot trading fees are 0.10% for both makers and takers, reduced to 0.08% when paid using BGB, Bitget’s native token. Futures trading fees are 0.02% for makers and 0.06% for takers, with further discounts available at higher VIP volume tiers.

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