Recently, I had a pretty interesting conversation with a senior executive from a leading exchange—it sounded like casual chat at first, but on closer inspection, there was a lot to unpack.

I've been in this industry for almost eight years now, and I've witnessed the whole process of the world’s largest platforms evolving from wild growth to compliance. It’s clear to me: this industry is shifting from "the big boss calls the shots" to "the rules call the shots." No matter how charismatic someone is, in the end, they have to abide by the system and framework. That’s the path every mature market has to take.

But here’s the question: do those top platforms actually follow these rules themselves?

If you divide the evolution of an exchange into 10 steps, which step are we on right now? As the era of hero-driven narratives fades out and institutional systems take over, what will define the next stage?

The executive’s answer was completely different from what I expected.

She said there’s definitely a shift from being led by visionary figures to being sustained by rules, but right now, they’re **only on the second step**—which honestly surprised me.

Her answer contained two layers of insight:

**First:** The industry is far from its endgame. The true integration of traditional finance and crypto finance, the building of on-chain capital market systems, systemic leaps in compliance and transparency... These things, which could reshape the global financial order, are just getting started. The global number one today could just be a starting point ten years from now. So the platform’s structure and rules will need to keep evolving.

**Second:** When a global organization can keep growing and innovating without relying on any star individual, that’s when it has truly high-level competitiveness. In this respect, they might really only be on the second step.

Finally, I asked a not-so-serious question:

If we’re only on the second step now, and there are eight more to go, does that mean platform tokens could go up eightfold?

She didn’t take the bait on that one. What do you think?