Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina）

Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010 ）

Today, an article titled "Please Immediately Stop Promoting Contract Experience Gold to College Students" sparked heated market discussion.

The article detailed how some centralized exchanges use contract experience gold to attract new college student users. Market opinions varied, with some viewing it as "luring people into gambling" and others seeing it as a normal business practice. Although the article did not specifically name any platforms, many users made guesses, and spokespeople from some centralized exchanges came forward to clarify and respond.

Odaily will sort out the details of this event for readers' reference.

Event Origin: A Tweet Exposing Industry User Acquisition Chaos

The event began with a tweet.

On April 13, Bruce Xu, co-founder of Ethereum Chinese Community ETHPanda and LXDAO, posted on X platform, revealing: "After chatting with students yesterday, I confirmed a fact: Some centralized exchanges provide contract experience gold to students, which cannot be withdrawn. If you earn money, it's yours, and you can get additional rewards by taking screenshots of exceeding a certain multiple and sharing in friend circles. Are we cultivating gambling addicts starting from college students? How disgusting. 🤮 This is crossing the line."

Bruce Xu's tweet details

Subsequently, the article "Please Immediately Stop Promoting Contract Experience Gold to College Students" emerged, calling on major centralized exchanges to be mindful of their user acquisition methods and not use high-leverage contracts as "bait" to induce college students into crypto trading, to prevent personal property losses.

CEX Responses: One Directly Admits Fault, Another Seeks Evidence

After the incident, some community users pointed fingers at two platforms: Bitget and Bybit.

Bitget's spokesperson was the first to respond. Chinese language head Xie Jiaying stated: "Regarding the media article's call for exchanges to stop promoting contract experience gold to college students, and Bitget's campus ambassador program launched in February, Bitget makes the following statement:"

1. Regarding the campus ambassador program: Bitget's campus ambassador project aims to promote blockchain knowledge and provide internship opportunities, and has not encouraged contract trading or issued contract experience gold. The program was launched on February 18 and was quickly taken offline globally on the morning of February 19 due to user misunderstandings about contract rebates, with no applications approved during this period.
2. Adhering to principles, refusing inducement: Bitget has never issued contract experience gold to students through any form, which is Bitget's bottom line. We welcome social supervision and invite screenshot reports of such behavior, with Bitget promising to handle them seriously and offering up to 1000 USDT reward for effective reports.
3. University cooperation limited to popularization and employment: Bitget's university collaborations focus on Web3 popularization, internships, and employment guidance, such as 2025 campus recruitment (28 people hired), Zhejiang University Hackathon, and HKUST Web3 sharing session.

Bitget always supports industry self-discipline and actively responds to initiatives. Bitget will launch a "Green Campus Plan" to help college students understand Web3 and explore the future in a healthier manner. We welcome supervision and suggestions.

A student who participated in Bitget's promotion at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology also commented: "I declare that there was absolutely no 'contract experience gold' distribution in this event, which is purely a rumor for Bitget." Regarding the circulated campus ambassador program announcement, Xie Jiaying added: "The related announcement was quickly taken down after being online for only 16 hours".

Bitget's previous announcement content

Compared to Bitget, Bybit's response was more aggressive. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou fiercely argued in the KOL [Zishi] comment section that claims of "promoting contract trading in schools", "legal action against OKX wallet", and "collecting listing fees" were baseless rumors. He emphasized: "The crypto market is so chaotic because of unfounded rumors without evidence."

Subsequently, someone in the comments posted Bybit's campus ambassador recruitment announcement from September 25, 2024, questioning Ben Zhou's first point about Bybit promoting contract trading in schools.

Partial information from Bybit's campus ambassador recruitment announcement

Event Aftermath: Most Oppose, Few Find It Debatable

As the controversy continued to spread, more people joined the discussion about whether exchanges should use contracts to attract college students.

Most crypto KOLs and market users believe this approach is essentially gambling disguised as a financial product, using derivatives to attract new users. Crypto KOLs like Crypto Brave, former Chainnews founder and current Bodl founder Liu Feng, and Slow Mist founder Yu Xun all expressed opposition and criticism, which is currently the mainstream view.

However, some offered different perspectives.

Crypto KOL Kay Capital wrote that "media calls for contract platforms not to harm college students will result in a PR statement and clarification about campus ambassador positions, which won't prevent it from continuing to happen." He added: "It's just that the market has no incremental users, and these platforms are returning to their old user acquisition methods. The righteous approach would be to ruthlessly delta neutral the experience gold like Ru Tie Hui, and spread neutral farming methods, rather than telling drug dealers not to sell drugs. By drugs, I mean 125x perpetual contracts are essentially a very professional product that should not be offered to retail investors."

ChainFeeds co-founder Pan Zhixiong reposted the article and commented: "I just discovered that Shanghai TV's Five Star Sports Channel is actually teaching how to participate in sports lottery, how experts predict, how to calculate odds, and other instructional content." It's clear that these two bloggers lean towards a "platform neutrality, tools have no right or wrong, individuals are responsible for themselves" perspective.

Crypto KOL Pepper also commented: "Some paths must be walked. If college students don't gamble on contracts, they'll play digital collections, CS GO skin gambling, online gambling, Duo Le Lottery, Beijing Racing, Instant Lottery, Minute Lottery." Directly revealing the brutal reality.

The controversy today has temporarily subsided, and we will wait and see whether major centralized exchanges can introduce corresponding control mechanisms for "college student contract trading".