Gate Research Institute: Transparent fee structures have advantages, and the scale effect of Gate ETF continues to be evident

Summary

• Over the past two years, exchanges have significantly reduced and phased out ETF categories; in a context where fewer exchanges can provide stable trading, Gate’s continuous supply of ETF products has become a scarce competitive advantage.
• Gate is not only offering ETFs but has also developed a mature product line that features scaled supply, transparency, explainability, and low, uniform costs.
• In 2025, Gate will support trading of 244 ETF leveraged tokens throughout the year, with approximately 200,000 users and an average daily trading volume reaching several hundred million dollars.

1. Market Status

In the context of crypto trading, ETFs refer to leveraged tokens (ETF Leveraged Tokens) issued by exchanges, which package perpetual contract positions into tokens that can be directly bought and sold on the spot market. This allows users to gain long or short exposure at a target multiple by simply “buying or selling a coin.” However, the supply of ETF leveraged tokens has sharply contracted in recent years. For example, B** phased out leveraged token trading, subscription, redemption from February to April 2024 and eventually stopped supporting them; B** also announced the delisting of some leveraged tokens in 2024, ceasing spot trading, subscription, and redemption, and continued to phase out BTC and ETH leveraged pairs into 2025; K** announced in late 2025 the phased delisting of multiple leveraged token groups and phased out services like trading, subscription, and redemption for BTC leveraged tokens.

The delisting of ETF leveraged tokens by exchanges does not mean that users no longer need leverage. Instead, leveraged tokens are complex structured products. Without sufficient mechanism disclosures, risk control systems, and user education, they are prone to misuse as fixed-multiple tools for long-term holding, which can lead to path dependence and volatility losses during sideways markets, causing concentrated complaints and product disputes. Against the backdrop of industry compliance and declining risk appetite, many platforms choose to eliminate such complex products, resulting in fewer mainstream exchanges capable of stable ETF leveraged token trading.

Conversely, for platforms like Gate that persist and continue iterating in this category, product supply itself becomes a scarce competitive advantage. With fewer similar platforms, the alternative entry points for users decrease, making liquidity and trading users more likely to concentrate on Gate, supporting more short-term leverage demand.

2. Product Forms

The core design of Gate’s ETF leveraged tokens is to map the underlying perpetual contract leveraged positions into a tokenized product that can be directly bought and sold on the spot market via net asset value (NAV). For users, trading experience resembles spot trading more—no margin required, and no need to manage margin or liquidation lines like with contracts. Additionally, costs are bundled at the “product level,” with Gate explicitly disclosing a 0.1%/day management fee, covering hedge costs, funding rates, and slippage.

Leveraged tokens are not meant to replace contracts but to transform leverage from a professional tool into a tactical tool, especially suitable for two typical needs:

• Trending markets: When the market exhibits strong unidirectional movement, leveraged tokens amplify exposure and maintain the target leverage through rebalancing mechanisms.
• Leveraged participation without managing liquidation risk: Users do not need to monitor margin, top up positions, or face forced liquidation risks like with contracts. Of course, this does not mean risk-free; it shifts risk from forced liquidation to NAV paths and rebalancing costs.

Overall, ETF leveraged tokens are suitable for short-term, strong trending scenarios rather than long-term holdings.

3. Mechanism Breakdown

The two most important variables for leveraged tokens are rebalancing and NAV paths. Gate provides clear rules and parameters in its mechanism disclosures, which is an important signal of the maturity of Gate’s leveraged token products.

3.1 Rebalancing Timing and Trigger Rules

Gate’s 3x/5x leveraged tokens undergo scheduled daily rebalancing at 0:00 (UTC +8).

Furthermore, Gate clarifies the “no rebalancing” floating range for leverage, which directly determines how frequently the position is adjusted and the friction costs in sideways markets:

• 3x Long: If leverage is between 2.25x–4.125x, typically no rebalancing; outside this range or meeting certain conditions, it adjusts back to 3x.
• 3x Short: Range is 1.5x–5.25x.
• 5x: When leverage is within 3.5–7x, no rebalancing occurs.
• Additionally, Gate may perform share consolidation or splitting when ETF prices are too low to affect trading precision, which changes position units and NAV but does not alter total position value.

These parameters are quite technical but are exactly what professional users care about: narrower ranges and more frequent triggers lead to higher sideways market costs; more reasonable ranges and transparent disclosures help users treat products as predictable, calculable tools.

3.2 Management Fees and Trading Costs

Gate consolidates costs into a unified 0.1%/day management fee, the lowest among mainstream exchanges, which covers all costs including hedge funding rates, trading fees, and potential slippage.

For users, transparent and low-cost fee disclosures significantly improve cost visibility. The trading costs that are dispersed across funding rates, slippage, and rebalancing in the contract layer are more directly reflected in NAV changes, reducing attribution biases caused by hidden costs.

4. Gate ETF Advantages

When the industry reduces complex product categories, Gate continues to develop ETF leveraged tokens into scaled, systematic, and explainable product lines, with transparent mechanisms to reduce misuse costs, turning scarce supply into liquidity and user stickiness.

4.1 Scale and Supply

For Gate, ETF leveraged tokens are not just a feature but a core segment.

According to Gate’s 2025 annual report:

• Gate supports trading of 244 leveraged ETF tokens and continues to add more assets, making it one of the exchanges with the most leveraged tokens.
• In 2025, Gate ETF had approximately 200,000 trading users throughout the year, with daily trading volumes reaching hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Gate ETF products are continuously iterated, with modules like multi-dimensional dashboards, rebalancing records, and beginner education introduced to help users get started quickly, continuously optimizing decision-making efficiency and overall trading experience.

While B** stopped trading leveraged tokens and B** and K** continued delisting similar products, Gate has expanded its variety and trading activity, forming a clear structural advantage. Future plans include launching combination ETFs and low-leverage inverse ETFs, further optimizing costs and expanding more robust leverage expressions through technological improvements.

4.2 Clear Mechanism Disclosure and Explainability

Whether leveraged tokens can be sustained long-term depends not only on the number of underlying assets but also on whether the product can be explained. This is a fundamental threshold for large-scale operation. Gate provides detailed disclosures on rebalancing timing, trigger ranges, and management fee coverage. By maintaining transparent rules, Gate turns high-dispute products into calculable tools, and this explainability is the most scarce capability during market downturns.

4.3 Compressing Complexity onto the Platform, Leaving Trading Certainty to Users

Gate consolidates costs into a 0.1%/day management fee, explicitly covering hedge-related expenses. This approach means Gate’s platform shoulders the complexity of trading and hedging execution, offering users a lighter operational threshold and more consistent cost expectations. During a period when the industry generally aims to reduce product complexity, this strategy of leaving complexity to the platform and certainty to the user is a key value driver for sustained market share growth.

5. Summary

The reason leveraged tokens have shifted from broad supply to contraction is not that users no longer need leverage, but that platforms find it difficult to simultaneously meet three criteria: explainable rules, unified cost disclosures, and sustainable risk management and aftercare. Gate’s advantage lies precisely in systematizing these three aspects during market downturns: using clear rebalancing thresholds and NAV anchoring disclosures to reduce misuse; employing a unified 0.1%/day management fee that covers costs and shifts complexity to the platform while leaving certainty to users; and combining scaled product coverage with mature delisting and buyback processes. This makes Gate ETF not just a feature but a long-term operational leverage product system.

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