by Coinstrooper Crypto Articles
Quick Take
  • Twenty traders gathered in Bali in August for the final of Alpha Arena S03, competing live in a simulated trading environment for a share of $100,000.
  • At the Bali competition, traders could be observed throughout the process.
  • Are they good at following their instinct, or are they more practical?” Usi said.
  • That is part of why he believes trading has an unusually low barrier to entry compared with many professional fields.

What Happened

The competition, backed by MEXC Ventures and held during CoinFest Asia, was won by Japan’s Arumando, followed by Murasaki Trades from the Philippines and Coin6097 from South Korea.

During Alpha Arena, Usi pointed to the difference between watching traders during an entire session and following them on social media, where successful trades can receive far more attention than the losses, uncertainty, and emotional decisions surrounding them.

“You see what kind of decisions they make. Are they panicking? Are they panic buying or panic selling? Are they good at following their instinct, or are they more practical?” Usi said.

Market Context

Twenty traders gathered in Bali in August for the final of Alpha Arena S03, competing live in a simulated trading environment for a share of $100,000.

For MEXC CEO Vugar Usi, the competition proved that a trader can enter the market with a small amount of money, catch the right trade, and become wealthy almost overnight – an idea that has long been fundamental to crypto’s appeal.

Exposing Trading for What It Is

At the Bali competition, traders could be observed throughout the process. Organizers even measured participants’ heart rates, allowing viewers to see how they reacted as markets moved and whether they followed their original strategy or made decisions under pressure.

That is part of why he believes trading has an unusually low barrier to entry compared with many professional fields. Someone can study markets independently, develop a methodology, and potentially compete against traders with formal financial training and access to far more expensive technology.

For exchanges trying to attract the next generation of users, this also changes the job. Aside from access to markets, traders also want information, analytical tools, and products that help them interpret what is happening once they arrive.

On Zero Trading Fees

Competition has become particularly fierce as major exchanges fight over trading costs.

MEXC has made zero-fee trading a big part of its strategy. Its current offering includes zero maker and taker fees across spot markets, alongside selected futures products, although eligibility and fee arrangements vary between products and campaigns. The exchange said its zero-fee initiatives saved 3.44 million users approximately 1.1 billion USDT during 2025.

Usi argues that reducing price to zero forces exchanges to compete elsewhere.

“When price is zero, it means the user is not choosing you because of just price,” he said. “That is where the competition actually starts.”

Once an exchange cannot meaningfully undercut another platform on fees, he argues, product quality, speed, available markets, trading tools, and other user benefits become more important.

His background in traditional finance influences how he thinks about trading technology. Professional firms have historically paid large sums for products such as Bloomberg Terminal because access to data, communication tools, and analytics can materially improve how traders process information.

Usi believes AI offers an opportunity to reduce that divide by taking capabilities that once required specialist software and presenting them to individual traders at a much lower cost.

In his own trading, he said he uses an AI assistant to study order books and identify where capital is concentrated, something that would be difficult for a person to continuously calculate across large amounts of market data.

“The opportunity with AI is not just to automate things,” he said, describing its potential to bring institutional-grade trading tools to retail users.

Why It Matters

AI Could Give Retail Traders Institutional-Level Tools

Details

Of course, the company now offers exposure to equities through several formats, including more than 300 stock and index futures, over 200 tokenized stocks, and more than 7,000 global stocks and ETFs through RealStocks, according to figures released by MEXC.

It forms part of Usi’s longer-term plan to take MEXC beyond the conventional definition of a crypto exchange.

Artificial intelligence was a big part of the conversation with Usi.

Naturally, retail traders are put at a disadvantage.