От инструментов к экологическому входу: перераспределение власти между кошельками и биржами

【Chain Article】The role of wallets is quietly undergoing dramatic changes. From the cold key management tool of the Bitcoin era to becoming an essential gateway for on-chain finance today, this transformation took more than a decade. The DeFi Summer moment was a watershed — wallets suddenly transformed from low-frequency asset storage boxes into indispensable gateways that dApp users must pass through. Later, the All-In-One wallet route gradually became the market mainstream, and amid successive waves of inscriptions and meme crazes, these wallets completed their capability verification, increasingly holding more trading paths and traffic distribution rights in their hands.

However, the wind is changing. The wealth effect of VC coins has faded, new on-chain assets and high-yield opportunities continue to overflow outward, and users are no longer willing to remain confined in exchanges for the long term. This pressure is forcing exchanges to accelerate their on-chain layout, moving toward embedded wallet solutions — extending compliance, fiat channels, and their massive user base into the on-chain ecosystem.

Gate Web3’s exploration is quite representative. The on-chainization of CEX is not simply replicating the logic of non-custodial wallets, but rather tightly combining the exchange’s account system, trading capabilities, and on-chain applications on the basis of protecting user asset sovereignty. The purpose is straightforward: to keep assets longer and increase user lifetime value.

Ultimately, the entire industry is experiencing functional reorganization. Financial capabilities that can be on-chainized and modularized are continuously flowing toward wallets, while exchanges maintain their eroding boundaries through on-chainization and ecosystem binding. This is not merely technological evolution, but a slow reshaping of power and traffic.