Gate TradFi's fundamental difference from traditional brokers: unified accounts and a 500x leverage reduction attack

Late at night at 11 p.m., Apple releases an unexpectedly strong earnings report. The traditional brokerage trading interface shows “After-hours trading has ended,” and you can only watch the fluctuating numbers and wait for the market to open tomorrow. At the same moment, Gate users are closing their AAPLON long positions with USDT in their accounts, transferring profits in real time to gold CFD positions.

These are snapshots of two financial worlds. The fundamental differences between Gate TradFi and traditional brokerages go far beyond “waiting three days to open an account.” Below, we will analyze this ongoing cross-sector restructuring from four dimensions: capital logic, trading rules, asset nature, and compliance architecture.

TradFi Accounts and Capital Systems

Traditional broker accounts are physically segregated. If you want to trade US stocks, forex, and gold, you typically need to:

• Open a securities account (waiting days for approval, sometimes requiring mailing signed documents);
• Open a forex margin account (different regulatory entities, different passwords);
• Transfer USD via wire transfer to a designated custodian bank, with single wire fees often ranging from $15 to $50.

Gate TradFi operates entirely within a unified, crypto-native account framework:

• One Gate account = crypto spot + crypto derivatives + TradFi assets (US stock CFDs, forex, gold, indices);
• The capital carrier is USDT: transferring USDT to a sub-account of TradFi automatically displays as an internal accounting unit USDx at a 1:1 ratio, with no currency exchange, no cross-border wire transfers, and no foreign exchange controls.

Key difference: Traditional brokerages handle “movement of fiat currency between custodians,” while Gate handles “account adjustments of stablecoins within a unified ledger.” The former is limited by SWIFT business hours and foreign exchange quotas; the latter operates with 24/7, real-time settlement.

Trading Hours and Settlement Efficiency

Traditional broker trading hours are legally and conventionally fixed:

• US stocks: 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Time). Even with pre-market and after-hours trading, liquidity significantly diminishes;
• Settlement system: US stocks will shift from T+2 to T+1 in May 2024, but funds are still not settled instantly;
• Market closures: On weekends and holidays, global macro risks cannot be hedged through traditional accounts.

Gate’s solutions are divided into two product lines but share the same 24/7 infrastructure:

• Stock tokens (xStocks): traded 24/7, blockchain-native settlement, supporting fractional shares;
• TradFi CFDs: although respecting traditional market hours (e.g., weekends closed), positions and margin management can be done anytime within Gate without waiting for broker operating hours.

Data evidence: Gate’s stock tokens and ETF products have accumulated over $20 billion in trading volume, with peak daily TradFi transaction volume exceeding $5 billion. This demonstrates a strong demand among crypto users for “liquidity outside US stock trading hours.”

Entry Barriers and Fee Structures

Traditional broker costs are often hidden behind the slogan of “zero commissions”:

• Minimum fee traps: some fractional brokerages charge a minimum of $15–$20 per trade;
• Hidden taxes and fees: non-US investors face 30% withholding tax on dividends (which can be reduced to 10% under US-China agreements with proper paperwork); selling stocks incurs SEC fees (~$8 per $1 million traded);
• Account maintenance costs: some brokers charge inactivity fees for low-balance accounts.

Gate’s cost model is entirely reconstructed based on crypto trading logic:

• Stock tokens: no dividend tax (since no direct stock ownership), no account management fees, with minimum trading units far below one share;
• TradFi CFDs: per-trade fees as low as $0.018, with variations based on VIP levels;
• Opportunity cost: users do not need to wait days for identity verification or forex approval; account opening and funding can be done in 3 minutes.

Typical scenario: an Asian student with only $200 cannot buy a single share of Nvidia at over $150 per share through traditional brokerages; Gate allows him to buy 0.1 NVDAON tokens with USDT, which can be sold at any time 24/7.

Asset Nature in TradFi

This is the most fundamental and often overlooked difference.

Traditional brokerages offer direct stock ownership:

• Your name (or custodian’s name) appears on the shareholder register;
• Voting rights, dividend rights, cash options in mergers and acquisitions;
• Disadvantages: cross-border transfers are complex, non-tradable outside trading hours, and shareholder rights processing is slow.

Gate’s TradFi assets are divided into two types, both not direct ownership but with different focuses:

First type: Stock tokens (e.g., AAPLON, TSLAON)

• Held 1:1 by regulated third-party custodians holding actual shares, with corresponding tokens issued on-chain;
• Holders do not have voting rights but receive economic benefits (dividends are converted into equivalent USDT and distributed);
• Advantages: tradable 24/7, transferable to self-custody wallets, and usable as collateral in DeFi.

Second type: CFDs

• Do not hold the underlying assets, only track the price movements of gold, forex, indices;
• Support two-way trading with up to 500x leverage (forex/indices), a leverage level most traditional retail forex brokers cannot offer.

Conclusion: traditional brokerages sell you “ownership,” while Gate sells you “instant price responsiveness.” For traders, the latter often has more short-term practical value than ownership.

Compliance and Trust Building

Traditional broker trust is based on regulatory licenses and deposit insurance (e.g., SIPC coverage up to $500,000).

But this system faces challenges: Tianfeng Securities recently obtained a virtual asset license but was under investigation, showing that compliance advantages in traditional finance can turn into regulatory liabilities when crossing sectors.

Gate’s compliance approach is a “dual-track” system:

1. Proactively acquire traditional financial licenses: as of April 2025, Gate has obtained 12 licenses/authorizations across 11 jurisdictions, including Dubai’s VARA (a highly regarded virtual asset regulator);
2. Crypto-native transparency tools: Gate is among the first major exchanges to implement 100% reserve proof. As of January 2026, its total reserve ratio is 125%, with total reserves around $9.478 billion, a level of capital adequacy rarely seen in traditional broker reports.

Summary of differences: traditional brokerages rely on “state endorsement” and “brand history,” while Gate relies on “mathematically verifiable on-chain reserves” and “growing physical compliance footprint.” The latter aligns better with the trust instincts of the digital-native generation.

Pace of Product Innovation

Traditional broker innovation is constrained by decades-old core systems (many clearinghouses still run on COBOL):

• Launching a new asset class typically takes 6–18 months of legal and compliance review;
• Interfaces and interaction logic remain in a “web + dedicated client” separation.

Gate’s product iteration is at internet speed:

• Structured finance: launched “Shark Fin” and other principal-protected or enhanced yield products, encapsulating TradFi derivatives logic in smart contracts;
• Points and Airdrops: a contract-based points system has run 67 periods, distributing about $3.7 million in airdrops, turning “trading activity” directly into “platform ecosystem rights”;
• AI Assistance: integrated GateAI assistant, using natural language processing to lower the barrier to understanding professional financial data.

This is not just about quantity of features but a generational shift in underlying architecture. Traditional brokerages are legacy financial pipelines; Gate is a value application layer running on a digital protocol layer.

Summary

Gate TradFi and traditional brokerages are not simply “better” or “worse.” They serve different mental models and capital natures:

• If you need shareholder rights, direct fiat payroll deductions, and longstanding custodial relationships, traditional brokerages remain the choice;
• If your funds are already in USDT form, if you want to close Nasdaq positions at 3 p.m. Beijing time (3 a.m. Eastern), or if you want to allocate $100 across gold and AI stocks, Gate is currently the only platform that can condense all these needs into a single app.

Traditional finance is learning tokenization (BlackRock and Citigroup both forecast $4–$5 trillion in assets on-chain by 2030). But Gate is no longer a “learner”; it is the one that has already set up trading terminals on-chain and is waiting for TradFi assets to onboard.

Your next trade doesn’t have to wait for the New York open.