From Instant Noodles To Blockchain: A Journey Of Self-Reliance And Systemic Change
When I was nine years old, I learned what I thought was the most important skill I could master. I was wrong.
As a single mother, my mom worked all day, and then, on some evenings, she'd go to class. She was doing her MBA at Sichuan, the best university in Southwest China. Because she was busy with work and studying, I mastered the skill that I thought was most important: Boiling instant noodles without burning the house down. On other nights, we'd go out and meet with her classmates, and she'd tell me, 'This friend runs a huge chain of stores. This one runs the chain of restaurants we're going to have dinner in.'
Boil Your Own Noodles
Looking back, I realize my childhood was like a mini-MBA: master of basic autonomy.
Lesson one: If you want noodles, you'd better learn to cook them yourself. She didn't even teach me how to cook, but my mom did teach me the importance of three things:
• Independence
• Going after what you want
• That getting an education is essential
These lessons have driven me throughout my career and are responsible for my becoming CEO of Bitget, a company where we understand the importance of empowering women.
Crypto With Conscience
At Bitget, we have been committed to leading the crypto revolution among women. We know it starts from within. We're the only top 10 crypto exchange with a female CEO, and 50% of management at Bitget are women. Think about that for a moment: 50% women in management? In crypto? That's like finding a Bitcoin wallet that didn't get lost in a boating accident—rare, but glorious.
Blockchain4Her: From Mission To Movement
In January 2024, we launched the education initiative BlockChain4Her, with a $10 million commitment to scholarship and mentorship. We know that women are underrepresented in the crypto universe, but we want to rewrite the rules of inclusion in Web3. With Blockchain4Her, what began as a mission to empower hundreds of women has scaled into a global movement to educate thousands of girls and women.
Educating 300,000 Futures
Partnering with UNICEF and joining the Game Changers Coalition is our next step in doing that.
Again and again, research shows that educating women and girls is key to changing communities for the better and even to increasing a country's GDP. Doing so in the crypto space expands the opportunities for women's financial independence and has the potential for exponential impact. Currently, women and girls in low- and middle-income countries lose out on $15 billion in economic opportunities annually due to digital skills and internet access gaps. Blockchain has the potential to leapfrog infrastructure barriers; many young women in rural areas may never see a real bank branch, but they can access a crypto wallet on their phones.
Web3 is becoming increasingly important in our world. The U.S. government is in the process of passing a stablecoin bill to allow more global transactions to be settled in stablecoins on the blockchain. Every top university is offering blockchain courses now, even Harvard. All the most renowned universities are teaching their students about crypto finance, blockchain tech or Web3 entrepreneurship. If we want true equality, it is essential that women are given opportunities to learn about this new and paradigm-shifting technology.
Working With UNICEF
We'll be working with UNICEF over the next three years to build a curriculum and roll out a program that will be available to women and girls globally. We'll deliver blockchain education to 300,000 people across eight countries: Armenia, Brazil, Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Morocco and South Africa. The curriculum will be deployed both online and in-person, using game-based learning on platforms like Agora. We understand that we can't always know what's best for different regions, so we'll be working with local teams to make sure the content is always relevant. Those teams will help shape delivery, select guest lecturers and translate materials as needed.
Starting this year, we will also be adding a blockchain pillar to the hackathons held in various nations, so that the women and girls we've helped educate and bring into the crypto space can build community with each other to amplify the impact of their understanding of blockchain and opportunities for financial freedom. And we'll be offering mentorship, internships and seed funding for youth-led projects.
Bitget and UNICEF both understand that educating and empowering women and girls—especially when it comes to STEAM—is key to building a better world for all of us. We want to bridge gender and economic divides by equipping adolescent girls, parents, teachers and mentors with blockchain literacy. But this idea runs even deeper, right down to the core values of the work all of us do.
Equity Is The Point
When I first discovered crypto, one of the things that most excited me was the egalitarian nature of the industry. Bitcoin was founded on the idea of peer-to-peer networks versus the traditional financial model, where a few people or organizations hold all of the power—a model that has been shown (by every financial crisis) to be enormously problematic. However, equity is at the very heart of the concept of crypto. And yet, we don't see that playing out. Despite crypto adoption being highest in emerging economies like Indonesia and India, few platforms are investing in long-term education or infrastructure in those places.
Companies in our industry must do more than innovate. We must lead with conscience. This isn't about 'being good people.' In crypto—maybe more than in any other industry—we know that a rising tide lifts all boats. The more we can drive mass adoption, the more we all succeed. At Bitget, we are committed to this. Our internal structures reflect inclusivity. Our Blockchain4Her initiative has been pushing for more equity, and our partnership with UNICEF on the Game Changers Coalition is the next step.
The tech industry is uniquely positioned to redefine access, equity and opportunity. The real question is: Will we collectively rise to the occasion?
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Uh the bottom line is a little iffy, uh, given that they're just in line with the consensus, 48 cents for June. And then, uh, the bottom line for next quarter, uh, they don't give uh, an EPS guidance, uh, but they are saying that it excludes any China shipments, which we expect them to get back into China quickly, uh, as the Trump administration has relaxed those guidelines. And so, um, that number 800 million came out of the June number. And so if you add that back in, then you've got, uh, a really nice upside this quarter. And if you add anything back into September, then that 400 million turns into probably something closer to a billion dollars of upside. And so I think overall it's a very strong number and hence the stock reaction after hours. Cody, let me ask you a a key issue that obviously, you know, your colleagues on the street are asking broadly, Cody, how big is the AI opportunity for AMD, for Lisa Su's company with China sanctions reversed? Well, with China sanctions, it's about a billion and a half, uh, that they expect that they lost this last two quarters. And so, uh, I think that reverses pretty quickly. Uh overall for AI, uh, it's a huge opportunity because you see what Nvidia is doing, and really AMD is the only viable alternative outside of the custom ASICs that the hyper scalars are doing. So if you want general purpose CPUs and every server has to run on a general purpose CPU, uh, to handle all the back office and all the coordination of these hyper scalar data centers, um, then if you're looking for an alternative to Intel or Nvidia, AMD is really the only game in town and they've been really eating Intel's lunch from a performance standpoint and from a price and performance standpoint versus Nvidia. They're also very, very good alternative. So I think the upside is really unlimited for AMD. It's just a matter of, uh, can they capture it? And I think so far they are starting to. Cody, you mentioned Nvidia. When you think about AMD's latest and greatest AI chips, how would you stack them up versus Nvidia? Is there a performance gap there? Well, with their MI 350, uh, they're they've really closed the gap. Uh, with their 400, they're getting some performance advantage. Really where AMD gets the biggest advantages in their their memory bandwidth, uh, their ability to throughput faster data. Uh, and so on a processing to processing basis, AMD likely still trails in video somewhat, but they make what they make up for or lack in processing, they make up for in memory bandwidth. And that's really their strength and that's that's really the, uh, the the, uh, the gating factor for these hyper scale data centers is how fast can they push product through these processors. Uh, it's not necessarily absolute processing speed, but it's the bandwidth of memory, uh, that is the limiting factor. Chris, I want to get you in here because Cody, and Cody likes this name. I know he tells his clients this one's a buy. You're not such a fan, Chris, of this this one. Explain why. Well, it isn't that we're not a fan, right? You know, when you look at the pro portfolio, we we have shares in Nvidia and we have shares of Marvel and you know, uh, I I think Cody said, if I remember correctly, that AMD is a viable alternative after some of the custom ASIC chips that the hyperscalars are doing. You're talking about, you know, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet. That is one of the angles that Marvel offers us opportunity into those custom ASICs as well as writing the overall wave of AI and data center demand. Marvel also has the, uh, you know, enterprise networking and the carrier infrastructure, which I see really benefiting from incremental capital spending as AI adoption continues to rise. Cody, your your response to Chris's comments there. I completely agree with Chris on that. Uh, the ASIC vendors, uh, the Marvels and Broadcoms of the world are really coming on into their own as the hyperscalars are continuing to lean into custom solutions. Uh, they're wanting tailored specific solutions for their very tailored specific workloads. And so, uh, they don't need to pay for all the overhead of a general GPU that is Nvidia, uh, if they've got a very specific workload that they need to customize for. And, uh, with these ASIC vendors, they're able to do exactly that and provide a much cheaper internal solution that is that meets only the needs of the hyperscalars individually. And, um, and I think that that's a big market going forward. But, uh, there's also the need for general purpose GPUs CPUs. Uh, and so, uh, I think that AMD can bridge in between, uh, because you do need CPUs to run even those hyperscale servers that are running Marvel and Broadcom chips. They have to have CPUs to manage all that backlog or that back office workload. And so, um, I think that AMD is a very, very nice alternative to Intel today, is what we've seen. And, uh, and and to Nvidia's Grace Hopper or Grace CPU that, uh, that is is entrenched in their Blackwell processor. Cody, how should investors think about the 232 tariffs and what that could mean for AMD's financials? Well, the the tariffs are are less of an issue, I think, uh, only because, uh, these processors are are being built largely, uh, in in Arizona. And and so these are domestic, uh, production into domestic data centers. And so I don't think tariffs are going to be a major issue. Uh, there are issues as, uh, AMD starts to ship into China, uh, and any restrictions into China, but I don't think that that tariffs are going to be a major concern. You know, Cody, AMD offered what looked like a solid forecast here. You see the shares are slipping here at least, you know, in the after hours. What do you chalk that up to, Cody, potentially? Was this just a very high bar heading into this print? Yeah, I think so. I think that AMD has had such a run that almost anything was going to cause some profit taking. Um, only an absolute blowout number, uh, was going to probably keep investors happy. And so I think that anything close to the the bottom line in-line June number and what probably will shake out to be close to, uh, the bottom line September number, uh, is going to be an excuse for traders to take profits. And and I don't blame them for that. Uh, but I do think in the long run, AMD is a great investment, uh, and it will grind higher, um, following any any quick trading volatility. 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