Sometimes when you look at successful exchanges, you wonder how they managed to survive the toughest times.

The story goes back to August 2017. A leading exchange had just been online for 16 days when the founder recorded a video in a simple office. At that time, he didn’t wear his signature black-rimmed glasses yet; he was dressed in a regular Polo shirt, looking serious. Why? Because the platform’s token had just been listed for over two weeks and had fallen below the issuance price, and community opinion was under immense pressure.

The key moment came—under extreme financial strain, the founder made a bold decision: publicly apologize and then announce that 40% of the company's liquid assets would be directly used to empower the token. In other words, he chose not to profit initially but to stabilize user confidence.

There are several details in this report that are particularly worth pondering:

First, he revealed the token holding situation of ICO participants—less than 15% had sold. This data is crucial; it proves that major holders still had confidence, which could stabilize morale with a single statement.

Second, he clearly stated that the platform and ecosystem partners would only accept this token in the future, fully integrating it into a deflationary and usage cycle. From a business design perspective, this effectively locked the token’s value into the platform’s growth.

Another detail is his attitude toward competition—he openly admitted that there would be over 1,000 competitors in this industry and even welcomed others to compete. At that time, such transparency was truly rare.

At the end of the video, he said: "This token will definitely succeed." It proved he wasn’t just talking. From an initial price of $0.15 to around $900 now, that’s a rise of over 6,000 times.

Looking back at the current ecosystem layout and market position of this exchange empire, it was actually set in stone back in that office in August 2017. The choices made by one person during the most difficult moments often determine the future trajectory.