As crypto markets move deeper into an institutional era, exchanges are recalibrating around a different mix of demand drivers, product expectations, and regulatory realities. Questions around market structure, tokenized real-world assets, stablecoins, and exchange differentiation are becoming more central in 2026, especially as the sector looks for clearer signs of recovery.
In this TNGlobal Q&A, Adam O’Neill, Chief Marketing Officer at Bitrue, shares his view on how exchanges are responding to a more competitive and more mature market. He discusses how Bitrue approaches regional expansion, product strategy, and user protection at a time when trust, liquidity, and localization remain key concerns across the digital asset industry.
O’Neill also offers his perspective on several themes shaping the current cycle, including whether the traditional four-year crypto pattern still holds, what tokenized real-world assets could contribute to market activity this year, and how stablecoins are influencing retail participation and exchange offerings.
The conversation also turns to Bitrue’s long-standing ties with the XRP community, the exchange’s plans around RLUSD, and the limited but still evolving role AI may play in crypto products. Taken together, the interview offers a snapshot of how one exchange is reading the market and where it sees the next pockets of growth.
Can you briefly introduce your background and Bitrue’s development since launch?
Bitrue was started in 2018 as a response to the growing inequality that we saw emerging from the financial sector. We saw a gap in the market for sophisticated financial products focused on crypto that could offer sizeable rewards to users simply for holding coins, and we were able to be the first exchange in the world to offer a crypto Earn product – Power Piggy. Since then, we’ve grown to 40m+ users in 7 years, and we continue working to provide a wide range of innovative fintech solutions.
Regarding myself, I’ve been working in the crypto industry for 10 years and at Bitrue specifically for most of them. I have a background in law, but an interest in tech propelled me to investigate new industries, and like many working in crypto, as I learned more about finance, I realized that it had the potential to become our generation’s great equalizer.
What do you see as the main competitive pressures facing crypto exchanges in 2026, and how is Bitrue responding to them? Which markets or user segments are most important to Bitrue’s growth strategy this year?
Flexibility has always been one of our core strengths, which has previously allowed us to support new coins and features as early as possible. This continues to be a strength as the market changes rapidly in 2026, as it lets us reconfigure our services according to the realigned interests of our users.
Regional expansion is a big goal for us this year, and we’ll be working to expand in a few key markets through professional translations of our website, connections with local media and influencers, offline events, increasing support staff who speak the local language, and adjusting policies to fit the region.
What are the main priorities for Bitrue in platform security, custody, and user protection today?
At the exchange level, funds are stored in Bitrue’s air-gapped proprietary multi-sig wallets, and a publicly viewable insurance fund has been active for 6 years.
At the user level, a wide range of account safety measures are in play, including email safety codes, 2FA, withdrawal reviews, IP whitelisting, and emergency account lockdowns.
What, in your view, has been driving recent weakness in crypto prices? Do you think the traditional four-year market cycle still applies, or has market structure changed in a more lasting way?
The four-year cycle is broken. A key difference now compared to before is the involvement of governments and institutions as major players, and their behavior is different compared to retail. Last year’s October shock and subsequent downturn could’ve resulted in 95 percent falls across the entire market had they happened in earlier years, but big players now constitute a bedrock foundational layer and ensure consistent levels of demand persist regardless of retail behavior.
The fundamental cause of the dip is uncertainty – so many political and economic issues are on a knife’s edge right now, and nobody wants to make large commitments that could turn out poorly due to regulatory uncertainties. The AI bubble is also increasingly concerning, given that it is propping up a large part of the US economy.
What role could tokenized real-world assets play in restoring liquidity and attracting broader participation in crypto markets this year?
RWAs help boost liquidity, offering easy and rapid access to real-world assets. We’ve seen this clearly with rare metals already in 2026, delivering a huge boost in the trading volumes of tokenized gold and silver.
There’s also been a clear request for tokenization from the TradFi sector, and any movements towards getting them onboarded and comfortable with crypto will help the sector grow in terms of volume while also legitimizing the industry.
Bitrue has long had visibility in the XRP ecosystem. What have been the key milestones in that relationship over the years?
We were the first exchange to list XRP as a base pair and have grown to offer more than 80 spot pairs now available for trading. While other major exchanges delisted XRP, we have continued to enable users to trade XRP on our platform since its initial listing. Bitrue has supported the wider ecosystem of coins built on XRPL (e.g., Flare & Songbird), run an XRP validator, and we currently have 120m XRP spot volume and 220m XRP futures volume.
How does XRP fit into Bitrue’s broader product and liquidity strategy in 2026?
Right now we’re focused on expanding support for RLUSD, the stablecoin from Ripple. We just launched our first 10 RLUSD trading pairs and will have more coming weekly. We’re also consistently launching events in which XRP is the focus, such as monthly trading contests, which generally have prize pools consisting partially or entirely of XRP.
Many tech platforms are exploring AI-facing features. How is Bitrue assessing the role of AI in trading products or user experience?
We don’t have plans to integrate AI into our own processes or production methodology, but we may offer AI-related services to users (e.g., AI summaries of price action on coins). Earlier this year, we experimented with allowing customers to put their portfolios in the hands of AI agents.
How is Bitrue thinking about new product categories such as advanced trading tools, automation, or adjacent markets beyond spot and futures?
No plans at this time. Prediction markets are outside of our core scope.
How important are stablecoins to Bitrue’s trading, yield, and retail product strategy this year?
We will continue to bolster the Earn product with more stablecoin-focused offers while they continue to be the core investment strategy for retail. Afterwards, it will depend on market conditions.
Featured image: Batyrkhan Shalgimbekov on Unsplash