Bitget's New Chief Legal Officer Hon Ng: Former Binance General Counsel Who Assisted in Musk's Acquisition of Twitter Explains the Legal Work of Exchanges

Oct 21, 2024

Author: Azuma (@azuma_eth)

On August 14, Bitget officially announced the appointment of former Binance executive Hon Ng as Chief Legal Officer (CLO). Hon Ng will play a key role in leading Bitget’s global business development, helping the company continue to advance its global compliance operations and strategic expansion.

According to Bitget’s official announcement, Hon Ng has over 20 years of legal experience and has been recognized as one of the top 20 global legal leaders by the Financial Times. Before joining Bitget, Hon Ng served as General Counsel and Head of Government Affairs and Policy at Binance. Prior to that, he worked at Uber, helping the company grow from a startup to a tech giant and eventually go public. Before entering the tech industry, Hon Ng worked at several well-known law firms, handling mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs.

For a leading exchange like Bitget, a leadership change in key areas such as compliance often signals a new direction for the business. To better understand Bitget’s future plans, especially its focus on global strategic deployment, Odaily Star Daily recently conducted an interview with Hon Ng. We were pleasantly surprised by Hon Ng’s openness and eloquence — initially, we expected a more conservative and serious tone from a legal professional, but Hon Ng not only candidly shared his career journey and mindset shifts but also provided detailed insights into the often misunderstood legal work at exchanges. He also elaborated on Bitget’s overall approach to compliance optimization and expansion.

20 Years of Experience and a Major Career Shift

Hon Ng’s career began at the London law firm Herbert Smith. Over the years, he also worked at well-known firms such as White & Case and Latham & Watkins, mainly in London, Doha, and Hong Kong, focusing on legal work related to mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs.

During his time in Doha, as a passionate football fan, Hon Ng was seconded to the Qatar World Cup Bid Committee, assisting the Qatari government in its World Cup application and preparation efforts. Reflecting on that experience, Hon Ng repeatedly used the word “challenge” because, at the time, most people did not believe that the World Cup would actually be held in the Middle East. However, Hon Ng and his team overcame numerous challenges and successfully hosted the spectacular World Cup that ended with Messi’s coronation.

In 2015, Hon Ng’s career took another significant turn when he joined Uber, which was still in its early stages of development, to assist with Uber’s strategic expansion in the Asia-Pacific region. At the time, online ride-hailing was not yet a common mode of transportation (at least not in the Asia-Pacific market). Driven by the challenge of “disrupting the old model,” Hon Ng worked at Uber for nearly five years, witnessing the company’s growth from a tech newcomer to an internet giant.

In 2020, Hon Ng officially entered the Web3 industry by joining Binance as General Counsel and Head of Government Affairs and Policy. When discussing his transition from Web2 to Web3, Hon Ng noted that the challenges faced by both sectors are actually quite similar — Uber’s competitors were the long-established taxi companies, while cryptocurrencies face the centuries-old traditional financial industry. Essentially, both are about using new innovations to iterate on old models.

However, Hon Ng also acknowledged that Web3 has some unique characteristics compared to Web2. For example, Web3 operates at a much faster pace, requiring practitioners to respond more quickly to industry trends. Additionally, the regulatory environment for Web3 is relatively immature, but Hon Ng sees this as an opportunity for companies to focus on the product itself. Unlike Web2, where businesses must navigate complex regulations, Web3 allows companies to purely concentrate on improving product quality to drive business growth.

Notably, during his time at Binance, Hon Ng played a role in helping Binance invest $500 million in Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X). Hon Ng believes that this was a highly meaningful endeavor for the entire industry, as it helped to introduce the concept of cryptocurrency to millions of potential users.

After three years at Binance, Hon Ng decided to step down to reflect on his career. During a nine-month hiatus, he confirmed his desire to remain in the industry, while several top exchanges, institutions, and projects reached out to him. Ultimately, Hon Ng chose to join Bitget due to his alignment with Bitget’s business plans and his affinity for the company’s corporate culture.

The Legal Work in Web3: A Deep Dive

Most cryptocurrency users may not be familiar with the specifics of legal work at exchanges. Hon Ng provided a detailed explanation of these responsibilities.

According to Hon Ng, Bitget’s legal team currently consists of over 70 people, making up about 4% of Bitget’s total staff — a proportion that is significantly higher than that of other exchanges in the industry. Bitget’s legal team operates on a distributed basis and is internally divided into multiple groups focused on different areas such as licensing, investments, partnerships, litigation, and contracts. Additionally, to align with regional regulatory differences, Bitget recruits local legal professionals in various jurisdictions to ensure smoother operations and business expansion in those areas.

Besides allocating significant human resources, Bitget has also partnered with specialized third-party compliance service providers like Chainalysis and Onfido to ensure more efficient compliance processes tailored to the specific regulatory characteristics of different jurisdictions.

Regarding his personal work routine, Hon Ng highlighted three main areas of focus at Bitget. The most visible is compliance-related work, such as licensing applications, KYC systems, and regulatory communications. The most complex is drafting user agreements — those lengthy terms that users must read before using the service. Hon Ng noted that while most users do not encounter the scenarios covered by these terms during normal usage, a small percentage of users might face disputes for various reasons, at which point the terms serve as a benchmark to fairly protect the interests of both the exchange and the users. Another important area is drafting contracts for various external partnerships, such as Messi’s endorsement contract or agreements for listing new assets.

When asked about the allocation of effort across different tasks, Hon Ng stated that the distribution of effort is relatively balanced but acknowledged that the difficulty of the tasks varies. The most challenging is the licensing work, particularly given the regulatory differences across jurisdictions and even within the same jurisdiction at different times.

During the conversation, Hon Ng mentioned two regions that mainstream exchanges are currently focusing on. First is the European Union, which has introduced the MiCA license specifically for crypto asset service providers. Holding this license will allow exchanges to operate crypto asset-related services across more than 20 EU member states. The main provisions of the MiCA regulations will take effect on December 30, 2024, but no exchange has obtained the license yet. Secondly, Hon Ng emphasized the U.S. regulatory environment. Although Bitget has fully exited the U.S. market, the regulatory landscape there is still worth monitoring, given the different regulatory approaches of the SEC, CFTC, DOJ, and the uncertainty surrounding the recent election, making U.S. regulatory stances harder to predict.

Bitget’s Compliance Journey

In recent years, there have been numerous examples of exchanges facing setbacks in compliance, such as FTX’s collapse due to chaotic accounting practices, and various exchanges being fined or forced to exit certain jurisdictions for failing to meet regulatory requirements.

When evaluating Bitget’s compliance initiatives, Hon Ng particularly emphasized learning from these past industry experiences to avoid similar incidents at Bitget. He also mentioned that he spends a lot of time considering potential risks that are not currently issues but could become problems in the future, aiming to prevent and mitigate challenges that Bitget may face. For instance, while some exchanges still operate in sanctioned regions like North Korea and Iran, these markets are absolute red lines for Bitget. The company employs strict measures across multiple dimensions — KYC, IP addresses, and phone number locations — to deter users from restricted regions from using their services.

According to Hon Ng, Bitget currently holds licenses in several jurisdictions, including Poland and Lithuania, allowing the company to operate compliantly under local regulatory frameworks. Looking ahead at regional expansion plans, Hon Ng stated that Bitget would not blindly pursue licenses in every market — there are simply too many licenses available. Instead, Bitget will assess whether to enter a market based on factors like market size, regulatory attitude, entry barriers, and the availability of local talent.

Specifically, Bitget plans to continue expanding in regions such as Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, though which countries to target will require further analysis. Hon Ng also mentioned that Bitget has strategically decided to temporarily forgo certain markets, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S., with the aim of better preparing for compliance before re-entering those markets. However, all decisions are dynamic, and Bitget will adapt to changing market demands.

In the final part of the interview, we asked Hon Ng, “As someone who directly interacts with regulators, how do you view the progress of crypto compliance, and how long do you think it will take for cryptocurrencies to reach the level of full compliance similar to stocks?” Hon Ng’s response exceeded our expectations: “Optimistically, within a few years, crypto assets could be widely accepted by global traditional companies.”

He added that this shift is already underway, with a clear example being the deep involvement of traditional financial firms like BlackRock and Fidelity in the issuance of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs. Drawing from his personal experience, Hon Ng recalled how Uber rapidly disrupted the transportation market, and now he sees a similar trajectory for the crypto market. While early adopters may have had concerns about the security of cryptocurrencies, these concerns are quickly dissipating as trust builds among users.

However, this doesn’t mean that the crypto industry is fully mature. From the industry’s perspective, Hon Ng believes that there is still a need to further explore the potential use cases of tokens and create more practical applications for cryptocurrencies. This, he argues, is the true foundation for the industry’s sustained development, gradual adoption, and eventual acceptance.

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