This past summer, Mainland China witnessed a fierce battle among food delivery platforms. With platform coupons stacked on top of discounts, a cup of milk tea could cost only a few yuan — or even nothing at all. Multiple food delivery platforms poured heavy subsidies into the market to lure users and cultivate consumption habits, thereby scaling up their operations. Nowadays, that same strategy has been replayed in the crypto investment domain. The “subsidy war” in crypto has officially begun.
Recently, Justin Sun — global advisor for HTX — publicly weighed in on high-yield crypto investment via the social media platform X. He stated that “The high interest is 100% subsidized by the platform” and that “There is no doubt we can afford these subsidies.” This undoubtedly ignites a frenzied land-grabbing competition among crypto trading platforms. More than 15 years after Bitcoin’s inception, top-tier crypto trading platforms are once again embroiled in a fresh round of deep competition.
“Takeout War” in Crypto Markets: Behind the High-Yield Subsidies Lies a Land-Grab Strategy
A look across a few leading trading platforms’ public offerings reveals that high-yield investment has emerged as a critical tool for platforms racing to capture market share. Mirroring the logic behind food delivery wars, these crypto platforms initially use subsidies to attract users and capital, grow liquidity, and then leverage that foundation to build long-term advantages through capital accumulation and ecosystem expansion.
From a macro perspective, nearly every major player is in the arena. Whether in P2P services, wealth management products, spot trading, or futures trading, platforms are deploying a full suite of tactics — ranging from onboarding new users to reactivating existing ones, retaining funds, and boosting trading activity. A brief breakdown of strategies within the wealth management segment shows how Binance offers tiered rates and time-locked products to attract large deposits; OKX gives elevated rates for 180-day fixed-term products; KuCoin leans toward mid- to long-term deposit plans; Bybit provides moderate yields on stablecoins and BTC; and HTX has opted for high-yield, flexible products directly subsidized to penetrate the market. Though each plays a different hand, the underlying principle is identical: using interest as a subsidy to grab users and liquidity.
This model is economically rational — crypto trading platforms resemble food-delivery and ride-hailing companies in that the more users and capital they retain, the deeper their order books and the richer their product offerings, fostering a virtuous cycle. Burning cash to win users isn’t reckless; it’s an upfront investment in future market share. Once users deposit funds and develop habits on a platform, switching costs rise dramatically. Subsequent services — trading, investment, lending — can be seamlessly offered within the same ecosystem, potentially locking in long-term benefits for both platform and users.
How to Build a Differentiated Subsidy Advantage in Crypto Wealth Management — A Case Study of HTX’s Earn Programs
In the current subsidy war among crypto platforms, each competitor is pursuing its own strategy to establish differentiated advantages. A simple cross-platform comparison using specific cryptocurrency interest rates makes this clear. Take ETH, a HTX’s flexible earn product as an instance. It offers interest rates ranging from 0% to 0.2 ETH, translating to an impressive 6% APY, which significantly outpaces Binance’s 1.47% and Bybit’s 0.8%. OKX can also reach up to 5% in the same range, but this comes with a 180-day lock-up requirement. By comparison, HTX not only delivers high yields but also demonstrates broader coverage of subsidized assets — from stablecoins like USDT and USDD to mainstream cryptos such as ETH, BTC, and XRP, and even extending to altcoins such as DOGE, SHIB, and niche tokens like TRUMP. Overall, HTX clearly provides more interest-earning opportunities across a wide range of crypto assets.
Differentiated Advantages of HTX Beyond High Yields: Extensive Asset Coverage & Continuous New Crypto Rollouts: Compared with other platforms, HTX Earn offers a much wider range of crypto assets, spanning not only mainstream cryptos and stablecoins but also emerging project tokens. . HTX regularly launches new crypto-based Earn products — sometimes even on a weekly basis, making it a compelling choice for both conservative stablecoin holders and speculative enthusiasts of new assets. High Flexibility & Zero Minimums: Many of HTX’s high-yield flexible earn offerings (for assets such as USDC, USD1, USDD, TRUMP, etc.) require no long-term lock-up, have zero minimums, and impose no subscription caps. Users can deposit or withdraw them on demand, enabling better capital efficiency compared to other platforms with fixed-term constraints. Transparent and Secure Backing: HTX supplements yield and flexibility with transparency. It publishes a Merkle Tree Proof of Reserves (PoR) monthly, and has maintained a reserve ratio of 100% or higher for three consecutive years. This provides users with strong assurance about the security and accessibility of their funds, in addition to the high-interest subsidies.
Long-Term Value Beyond High-Yield Subsidies
Although there are external concerns about whether these subsidies can be sustained in the long run, experience from the internet food-delivery subsidy wars suggests that this competitive logic is not likely to disappear anytime soon. For crypto exchanges, high-yield subsidies are merely a user-acquisition tactic — the true value lies in users’ transactional behaviors after funds are deposited and in the continued growth of the platform’s ecosystem.
High-yield wealth products are more than just “giving away money”. They represent a microcosm of the broader evolution in the crypto industry’s competitive landscape. From internet food delivery to crypto finance, subsidy wars are fundamentally battles over user acquisition and market share expansion. With its superior interest rates, wide range of supported assets, and more flexible product designs, HTX is carving out a differentiated advantage in the crypto investment arena.
This “new takeout war” in the crypto market has only just begun.
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