VICTORIA, Seychelles, Nov. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitget, the world's largest Universal Exchange (UEX), has announced the launch of the Open Custody Network (OCN), a new network connecting banks and institutional-grade custodians with Bitget’s trading infrastructure for all eligible users.
The initiative addresses a longstanding structural characteristic of the cryptocurrency exchange industry: the concentration of asset custody and trading activities within a single platform. Under the traditional centralized exchange model, users typically transfer their assets to an exchange to access the trading capabilities, concentrating custody and execution within the same venue.
Bitget OCN aims to address this shift by uniting custody independence, banking and institutional-grade security, integrated exchange trading, capital efficiency, and connected liquidity. Through Bitget OCN, users can maintain custody of their assets with participating external providers while accessing trading opportunities on Bitget, without requiring the underlying assets to be held directly in exchange custody. It also aims to provide traders with a more integrated experience, lower barriers to entry for everyone, and more equitable access to financial services.
OCN connects independent custody with Bitget’s spot, margin, and futures markets through asset mirroring, allowing eligible users to trade while keeping assets with their selected provider. For market makers, asset managers, and other institutions, the solutions offer a practical way to manage custody concentration risk while putting externally held assets to work across trading strategies. The result is greater custody flexibility and the ability to deploy externally held assets across trading strategies.
"We challenge the assumption that users must place their assets in an exchange’s custody to access its trading capabilities," said Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget. "Our proposition, ‘Assets in Bank, Tradings on Bitget.’, puts custody choice at the centre of that approach. For the first time, users can leverage world-class liquidity and capital efficiency with lower barriers and zero compromise on custody.”
Bitget is the world's largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users and offering access to over 2M crypto tokens, 500+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX, and precious metals such as gold. The ecosystem is committed to helping users trade smarter with its AI agent, which co-pilots trade execution. Bitget is driving crypto adoption through strategic partnerships such as MotoGP™. Bitget currently leads in the tokenized TradFi market, providing the industry's lowest fees and highest liquidity across 150 regions worldwide.
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