Zero Fees, 3,000 Tokens, One CEO's Quest to Add Guardrails Without Killing the Vibe

Vugar Usi, the freshly minted CEO of MEXC, has a theory about memecoins: they didn't lose relevance—the rest of the market just caught up to their chaos. "Everything has kind of become a meme at this point," Usi told CoinDesk. "Meme coins were driven by social sentiment, virality, speculation. Today one of President Trump's tweets does all these three." Apparently, when everyone's rug-pulling, nobody's rug-pulling anymore.

That thesis is driving MEXC's pivot from a memecoin playground into what Usi calls a "trade everything" platform—tokenized stocks, commodities, prediction markets, the whole Robinhood-in-offshore-superapp package. The twist? Unlike Binance, OKX and Bybit chasing institutional money and ETF flows, MEXC is doubling down on its retail-heavy base, which accounts for roughly 98% of activity. Institutional money is so 2019 anyway.

"Retail is our bread and butter," Usi said, pointing to the exchange's zero-fee model that he claims returned $1.1 billion to users in 2025. That's the marketing engine, he says—no Messi endorsements or Formula One sponsorships needed. Just pure, uncut greed. Well, generosity. Depending on how you view giving people free access to lose money faster.

The strategy hinges on a bet that retail isn't dying, just roaming to whatever asset is most volatile at any given moment. Prediction markets, where traders bet on event outcomes rather than asset prices, are a key piece of that puzzle. Because nothing says "I have a healthy relationship with risk" like gambling on whether it'll rain in London next Tuesday.

But there's a wrinkle: MEXC's reputation has taken some hits. The "White Whale" incident saw a pseudonymous trader allege $3 million in funds got frozen under opaque risk-control rules. After months of public pressure, MEXC's chief strategy officer Cecilia Hsueh issued an apology in October, admitting the company's "risk, operations, and PR teams have not kept up" with growth. Withdrawals spiked afterward but have since stabilized. Nothing like a good old-fashioned community reckoning to remind you that Web3 actually does have memory.

The exchange rebounded to become the second-largest by volume at the end of 2025, commanding 5% market share with 90% volume growth year-over-year—despite a CoinDesk report grading it lower tier on risk and compliance. Sometimes being chaotic is just good business strategy. Looking at you, every DeFi protocol launched in 2021.

"Compliance readiness was one of the key missing points in MEXC's growth," Usi acknowledged. The exchange has started conversations with regulators in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. On a potential U.S. entry, even if the CLARITY Act passes? He's not committing. "Expensive and complex." Translation: we'd rather not explain to the SEC why our token list includes a coin named after a cartoon frog with political aspirations.

The core question remains: can MEXC add guardrails without losing the memecoin chaos that made it work? Usi's betting the answer is yes—and that retail just needs more things to speculate on. In this market, hope is basically a trading strategy.