I have a bold statement: all Chinese crypto exchanges are essentially a "digital Forbidden City", and exchange owners can be treated like "emperors", and all exchange dramas can be understood as "palace politics".
Some emperors, like Jiajing, were devoted to cultivation, mastered imperial power techniques, let two groups of subordinates check and balance each other, turned a blind eye to internal corruption, were willing to share some power, and believed that when one person achieves enlightenment, everyone around them benefits.
Some emperors emphasized absolute loyalty, were decisive in their actions, and did not tolerate any negotiation. Once someone tried to seek more benefits or challenge authority, they would be completely eliminated.
Let's casually discuss the internal palace politics of crypto exchanges, purely for entertainment.
Power Struggles
To understand palace politics, one must first abandon the naive idea that there are absolute distinctions between good and evil, loyalty and treachery.
In "Ming Dynasty 1566", although Yan Song was condemned by later generations as a treacherous official, he managed to securely hold the position of chief assistant for many years through his exceptional political skills and significantly helped enrich the national treasury; however, after the "pure officials" came to power and launched a thunderous anti-corruption campaign, the Ming Dynasty's treasury became even more empty.
Where in the world are there pure loyal or treacherous officials? There are only people who are useful to the emperor at the moment and those who are not, as well as those who succeed or fail in their struggles.
Where there are people, there are conflicts.
Power requires personnel implementation. The core of Yan Song and Xu Jie's struggle was the competition for personnel rights in the Ming Dynasty court. Whoever could plant their own people in the six ministries and nine ministers would control the actual power and influence the court's actual operation.
The power struggle in crypto exchanges is similar, essentially a competition for key positions.
For example, the most core departments like token listing, finance, and investment. With limited resources, various factions will inevitably fight fiercely.
As the boss, many times they are happy to see subordinates fight.
When subordinates compete with each other, they find it difficult to form a strong alliance, which prevents challenging the authority.
When two parties struggle, each has the motivation to provide the boss with negative information about the other, allowing the boss to obtain more comprehensive internal intelligence and control the subordinates.
Of course, such subordinate conflicts must be kept within a controllable range. Excessive internal strife can lead to resource waste, low efficiency, and even threaten the organization's overall stability.
When one faction becomes too powerful and threatens the boss's authority, the boss will employ some "imperial techniques", such as internally promoting or externally introducing a professional manager with significant power to sweep away the other faction.
For Emperor Jiajing, the core problem was: how to choose absolutely reliable ministers in a court where loyalty is hard to distinguish?
Exchange owners still face this challenge.
Competitor suppression and regulatory raids are visible dangers, but in exchange owners' eyes, the greatest danger often lurks nearby and is hard to detect, such as betrayal by those close to them. Thus, nepotism becomes the current optimal solution - key positions are often held by founders' relatives, classmates, or even family members, even if they lack professional capabilities.
In fact, nepotism or family-run businesses have proven to be the safest in the crypto market.
Corruption and Anti-Corruption
Power struggles inevitably involve corruption and anti-corruption, two sides of the same coin, both means of acquiring power.
In palace politics, the key is how to read the situation and choose the right side.
To form an alliance, one often needs a "bond" like hometown, school, or professional experience... These can be connection points, but more importantly, interests. Even regional or school relationships must be maintained through money.
How to gain the "big boss's" trust?
Besides providing emotional value, it's more important to expose one's own weaknesses. "Boss, all my issues are here, do as you wish, I'll follow you from now on".
Therefore, bribery or participating in collective corruption is actually the most effective way to show loyalty and test one's faithfulness. By using money to tie several people together, how can they not cooperate and help each other?
Specifically for crypto exchanges, internal corruption and insider trading are hard to prevent for two reasons.
First, whether trading or working, most people enter the crypto space for one purpose: making money.
Especially when joining a "high-risk company" like an exchange, most employees, particularly those from traditional industries, have no sense of company identity or belonging, and only think about making the most money in the shortest time.
Second, crypto exchanges remain in a gray area. Compared to corruption in traditional enterprises, corruption in exchanges is easier to escape legal sanctions and can be more easily hushed up. At worst, one can simply leave, but the goal is already achieved.
This is also the long-standing personnel challenge for exchanges.
The Emperor's Weakness
Crypto exchange owners and emperors share a similar tragedy: the higher their position, the harder it is to establish true trust.
Everyone approaching them might have different motives: some covet core power, some desire wealth, some have ulterior motives. In such an environment, suspicion becomes instinct, and defense becomes habit.
This trust deficit ultimately leads to a shrinking decision-making circle.
From watching TV dramas, one might wonder why emperors always have a "treacherous official" who is still favored.
Emperors are lonely. They don't lack money or power; what they lack is love and loyalty, which is their weakness.
Once someone offers love and loyalty to the ruler, making them feel appreciated, even if that person's abilities are relatively ordinary, they have value.
In this digital Forbidden City of exchanges, technical talents are not scarce, marketing experts are not scarce, and even funds are not scarce. What is truly scarce is genuine loyalty.
Love and loyalty can simply be expressed by supporting the emperor in everything, the more absurd, the more supportive, the more it demonstrates loyalty.
Running a crypto exchange is not easy, mentally and physically exhausting. Not only must they compete with peers, but also guard against hackers and battle with regulators. At such times, exchange owners are often mentally exhausted, even doubting themselves, wondering whether the exchange's growth is due to their brilliance or luck. They desperately need emotional support, a continuous reassurance that "you are right, everything is because of you, we are grateful".
Humans are not plants, who can be emotionless? Being recognized, loved, and needed is a natural human desire.
Ordinary people also desperately need love and loyalty, but they are still at the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, struggling to make a living and lacking the time and ability to pursue higher-level value satisfaction.
Women Around the Emperor
Here, discussing women around the emperor is not about gossip or the harem, but refers to female executives.
Exchanges often have many female executives, which is very reasonable.
A certain traditional financial boss who dominated the industry loved to employ female executives. In his view, compared to men, women are more loyal. No matter how much salary you give a man, he will never be satisfied. Even after many men are promoted and gain significant wealth and power, they don't feel much gratitude or loyalty, but instead become more confident, thinking "I could do this too".
The essence of power is a desire for loyalty and a fear of betrayal.
In the highly competitive environment of crypto exchanges, the bosses' biggest worry is "cultivating their own gravediggers".
After male executives obtain power and wealth, they often view their current position as a stepping stone to higher power. They are more inclined to attribute their achievements to personal abilities rather than leadership's promotion. They are more likely to choose to leave at an appropriate time, establish a competing enterprise, or seek a higher position.
Female executives, on the other hand, often demonstrate stronger organizational loyalty, focusing more on long-term stable career development rather than risky entrepreneurship. They are more willing to attribute success to team collaboration and leadership cultivation, and therefore cherish their current position and organizational relationships more.
Additionally, another major challenge faced by crypto exchanges is frequent crisis events and user communication. In this field, female executives often demonstrate unique advantages.
For instance, women generally perform better in identifying, understanding, and responding to others' emotions, which is particularly important in soothing angry users, handling complaints, and managing crisis public relations. In contrast, men are more likely to become emotional and confront users when dealing with such public crises.
Therefore, in my view, the female power in the crypto world is far underestimated.
It's interesting that looking back at history and the present, no matter how technology develops, whether in the traditional business world or the crypto digital world, the essence of power has never changed.
Where there are people, there is a world of intrigue.
When the moon is full, it wanes; when water is full, it overflows - this is the ultimate fate of all power games.
*TechFlow is committed to providing valuable information and thoughtful perspectives.
Community:
Weixin: blocktheworld
Twitter: @TechFlowPost
