Cede Hub
Trade-to-earn platform for volume-based trading competitions on CEXs
Website: https://cedehub.io/
Cover Block
PUBLIC
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Cede Hub |
| Tagline | Trade-to-earn platform for volume-based trading competitions on CEXs |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Founded | 2021 [PitchBook] |
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | Marketplace |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Technology | Blockchain / Web3 |
| Geography | Western Europe |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Gabriel Begazo (Co-founder & COO) [Wellfound] |
| Funding Label | Undisclosed |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://cedehub.io/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cede-labs
- GitHub: https://github.com/cedelabs/
Executive Summary
PUBLIC Cede Hub has demonstrated early product-market fit by building a profitable, volume-generating marketplace that connects crypto projects with active traders on centralized exchanges. Since its public launch in October 2024, the platform has distributed over $950,000 in rewards and generated more than $400 million in organic trading volume across 120+ competitions for projects like Beefy and Lukso [MEXC]. The company's recent integration with Crypto.com Exchange in December 2025 marks a significant step toward scaling its user base and validating its non-custodial, trade-to-earn model [Crypto.com, December 2025].
Founded in 2021, the Paris-based team of 16 has built its core product on over four years of specialized expertise in crypto exchange connectivity, a technical moat that facilitates secure account linking and real-time competition mechanics [Station F]. Co-founder Gabriel Begazo, who has been active in the Paris blockchain community since at least 2023, leads operations [Paris Blockchain Week, 2023]. The company is backed by notable crypto-native investors including GSR, Anagram, Ledger, and Kiln, though the specific terms of its capitalization are not publicly disclosed.
The key question for the next 12-18 months is whether Cede Hub can expand beyond its current niche of token project competitions to capture a broader segment of the active retail trading market, while maintaining its claimed profitability amid crypto market volatility. The company is actively recruiting for growth roles, signaling an intent to scale [Ariel B. LinkedIn].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core traction metrics are reported by a single exchange partner; team size and investor backing are corroborated by multiple public profiles but lack primary confirmation.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Classification |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | Marketplace |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech |
| Technology Type | Blockchain / Web3 |
| Geography | Western Europe |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Funding | Undisclosed |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
Cede Hub was founded in 2021, operating from Paris, France [PitchBook]. The company, which appears to operate under the broader entity Cede Labs, focuses on building infrastructure and applications for crypto traders. A key public milestone was an interview with co-founder Gabriel Begazo at Paris Blockchain Week in 2023, providing an early signal of the team's engagement with the European crypto ecosystem [Paris Blockchain Week, 2023].
The company's primary commercial product, the Cede Hub trade-to-earn platform, launched in October 2024 [MEXC]. Since that launch, the platform has generated significant reported traction, including over $400 million in organic trading volume across more than 120 competitions and distributing over $950,000 in rewards to its community [MEXC]. A notable partnership milestone was announced in December 2025, with Crypto.com Exchange integrating Cede Hub to allow its users to participate in the platform's competitions [Crypto.com, December 2025].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core founding date and location confirmed by PitchBook; launch date and traction metrics are reported by a single source (MEXC). The Crypto.com partnership is a confirmed press release.
Product and Technology
MIXED
The core product is a trade-to-earn platform that organizes short-duration, volume-based trading competitions on centralized exchanges (CEXs). Users connect their existing CEX accounts to Cede Hub, join a 24-hour competition on a specified token pair, and earn USDT rewards based purely on the volume they generate, with all trades executed directly on the user's connected exchange [Cede Hub]. This model, which the company describes as the first of its kind, is designed to generate organic trading volume for token projects while providing a gamified incentive for active traders [MEXC].
The technical architecture appears to rest on a non-custodial connectivity layer that allows the platform to read trading activity and distribute rewards without taking custody of user funds. This capability is supported by Cede Labs, the team behind the hub, which has developed a suite of tools including cede.link, a web-based portfolio manager for CeFi and DeFi, and cede.store, a browser extension for managing crypto on centralized exchanges [BeInCrypto]. The team's public GitHub repository and multiple team member statements cite over three years of specialized expertise in building secure CEX connectivity, a foundational component for scaling partnerships [Cede Labs GitHub] [RocketReach].
Since its October 2024 launch, the platform has executed over 120 competitions for projects like Beefy and Lukso, distributing over $950,000 in rewards and generating what it reports as over $400 million in organic trading volume [MEXC]. A significant public development is the December 2025 integration with Crypto.com Exchange, which allows that platform's users to securely connect their accounts and participate in Cede Hub's structured competitions [Crypto.com, December 2025]. The company's public job postings indicate active hiring for full-stack software engineering roles, suggesting ongoing development of the core platform [Ariel B. LinkedIn].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core product mechanics are described on the company site and in partner announcements. Volume and payout metrics are reported by a single exchange publication (MEXC) and have not been independently audited. Technical stack and team expertise are corroborated by GitHub activity and LinkedIn profiles.
Market Research
PUBLIC
The market for structured crypto trading incentives is emerging from a foundational need for token projects to generate verifiable, organic volume on centralized exchanges, a challenge that persists despite the maturation of the broader digital asset industry.
A precise TAM for trade-to-earn platforms is not established in third-party reports. The opportunity can be sized by proxy through the market for crypto exchange trading volume, which is its primary input. According to a Crypto.com corporate announcement from December 2025, the exchange's own spot trading volume exceeded $4.7 trillion in 2024 [Crypto.com, December 2025]. Cede Hub's model targets a segment of this volume driven by project-specific incentives, a niche that has grown as token teams seek alternatives to opaque market-making arrangements. The company's cited generation of over $400 million in volume for partner projects suggests an initial Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) in the hundreds of millions, though this remains a company-supplied metric [MEXC].
Demand is driven by several converging factors. Token projects, especially those post-listing, require sustained trading activity to maintain liquidity and investor interest. Traditional methods, such as engaging market makers, can be capital-intensive and lack transparency regarding the source of volume. Cede Hub's competition model offers a measurable, community-engaged alternative where volume is directly attributable to real user trading. A secondary driver is the growth of the active retail trader segment on major CEXs, a user base that platforms like Crypto.com are explicitly courting with gamified features [Crypto.com, December 2025]. This creates a natural partnership channel for incentive platforms.
The primary adjacent market is the broader crypto trading tools and analytics sector, which includes portfolio managers and tax platforms. Cede Labs' other products, cede.link and cede.store, position it within this space [BeInCrypto]. A key substitute market is the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, where perpetual DEXs and on-chain incentive mechanisms like liquidity mining compete for trader attention and volume. However, the centralized exchange (CEX) user base remains significantly larger, and Cede Hub's focus on bridging to that existing liquidity is its core differentiator.
Regulatory and macro forces present a dual-sided risk profile. Favorable regulatory clarity for digital assets in jurisdictions like the EU (MiCA) could bolster overall CEX activity, expanding the pool of potential users. Conversely, increased scrutiny on exchange operations or on the classification of trading rewards could impose compliance costs. The platform's non-custodial model, where users connect accounts but trades settle on the partnered exchange, may mitigate some regulatory exposure by not handling user funds directly.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Cede Hub Partner Volume (Oct 2024+) | 400 $M |
| Crypto.com Spot Volume (2024) | 4700 $B |
The scale disparity illustrated above frames the opportunity: Cede Hub's early traction, while notable, occupies a minute fraction of the total exchange volume it plugs into. The bet is on capturing a growing share of the incentive-driven segment within this massive pool.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market sizing relies on one exchange's public volume report and company-supplied traction metrics.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
Cede Hub operates in a niche where direct, feature-for-feature competitors are not yet widely publicized, but its position is defined by a clear adjacency to several established categories of crypto trading infrastructure and community engagement.
Its primary competitive exposure comes not from other trade-to-earn platforms, but from the adjacent services that could expand into its territory or render its value proposition less compelling. The competitive map is best understood in three layers.
- Incumbent trading platforms. Centralized exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and Crypto.com (now a partner) have their own native reward programs, staking, and trading competitions. These are typically designed to boost platform engagement rather than serve as a third-party service for token projects. Cede Hub's defensibility here is its neutrality and multi-exchange reach, but its reliance on these platforms' APIs is a structural dependency.
- Challenger engagement platforms. Web3 marketing and community platforms like Galxe, QuestN, and Layer3 offer quest-based user acquisition campaigns, often rewarding users for social actions or simple on-chain transactions. While these focus on broader marketing funnels, they represent a substitute for token projects seeking user growth, competing for the same project marketing budgets.
- Adjacent infrastructure. Portfolio management and aggregation tools like Zerion, Zapper, and DeBank provide the multi-exchange dashboard functionality that Cede Labs also offers through cede.link. These tools are not directly competitive with the competition hub but share the foundational technology of exchange connectivity, representing a potential expansion path for those incumbents.
Cede Hub's current edge is twofold and appears durable in the near term. First, its team's specific, multi-year expertise in building secure connectivity to numerous CEX APIs is a technical moat that is non-trivial to replicate [Cede Labs GitHub]. Second, its early mover status in structuring volume-based competitions as a service has generated a track record, with over $400 million in volume and partnerships with projects like Beefy and Lukso serving as social proof [MEXC]. This combination of technical depth and demonstrated results creates a bundling advantage for token projects seeking a turnkey solution.
The exposure is equally clear. The business model is highly dependent on the continued willingness of crypto projects to pay for organic trading volume, a demand that is tightly coupled with market sentiment and token launch cycles. A sustained bear market could quickly dry up this customer budget pool. Furthermore, the company does not own the user relationship or the trading venue; a major exchange deciding to launch a competing, in-house competition product would immediately capture the market.
The most plausible 18-month scenario hinges on the adoption of its platform by exchanges as a value-added service, rather than as a competitor. The recent Crypto.com integration points to this path [Crypto.com, December 2025]. In this case, Cede Hub becomes a white-label provider, embedding its competition engine within partner exchanges. The winner in this scenario is Cede Hub, securing distribution through partnership rather than confrontation. The loser would be the standalone quest platforms that cannot offer the same volume-generation guarantee, seeing their value proposition to token projects diminish if Cede Hub's model proves more effective for liquidity goals.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitive analysis is inferred from adjacent market segments; direct competitor data is not publicly available.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If Cede Hub can institutionalize the trade-to-earn model, it could become the primary liquidity orchestration layer for token projects launching on centralized exchanges, a role with significant fee potential.
The headline opportunity is to evolve from a competition platform into a category-defining liquidity-as-a-service provider for the crypto ecosystem. The evidence that this outcome is reachable, not merely aspirational, lies in the company's demonstrated ability to generate material, on-chain trading volume for partners. Since its October 2024 launch, Cede Hub has reportedly driven over $400 million in organic trading volume across more than 120 competitions for projects like Beefy and Lukso [MEXC]. This volume generation is the core service token projects need, and the recent integration with Crypto.com Exchange demonstrates the model's appeal to major trading venues seeking to boost user engagement [Crypto.com, December 2025]. The company's claimed profitability and backing from established crypto-native funds like GSR and Anagram suggest a sustainable operational foundation from which to scale this service [Station F].
Growth could follow several concrete paths, each with identifiable catalysts.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Become the go-to launchpad for new token listings | Cede Hub's competition format is adopted as a standard pre- and post-listing engagement tool by major CEXs, with the company taking a fee on all volume generated. | A formal, multi-exchange partnership program is announced, moving beyond one-off integrations. | The Crypto.com partnership shows CEXs are willing to integrate the platform to drive user activity [Crypto.com, December 2025]. The team's cited multi-year expertise in exchange connectivity is a technical enabler for scaling such partnerships [Cede Labs GitHub]. |
| Expand into institutional portfolio management | The underlying Cede Labs technology for non-custodial, multi-exchange portfolio management (cede.link, cede.store) is productized for funds and high-net-worth traders. | A major institution or fund publicly adopts the Cede Labs suite for its operations. | The company has already announced a partnership with io.finnet aimed at transforming multi-exchange portfolio management for institutions [io.finnet]. This indicates an existing product roadmap and partner interest in this adjacent use case. |
Compounding for Cede Hub would manifest as a data and integration flywheel. Each new exchange partnership expands the total addressable user base for competitions, attracting more token projects to sponsor events. More projects running competitions generate more proprietary data on what drives trader engagement and volume for specific token types, which in turn allows Cede Hub to optimize competition structures and provide more valuable analytics to both projects and exchanges. This creates a lock-in effect: the platform with the broadest exchange connectivity and the deepest dataset on competition performance becomes the most efficient place to source organic liquidity. Early signs of this flywheel are visible in the progression from launching competitions to securing a tier-1 exchange integration within roughly a year of operation.
The size of the win, should the 'go-to launchpad' scenario play out, can be contextualized by the economics of crypto market making. While not a direct comparable, firms providing liquidity provision services to token projects can command fees based on a percentage of volume managed. If Cede Hub could capture even a small fraction of the trading volume it helps generate,extrapolating from the $400 million in cited volume,its revenue potential scales directly with the growth of the token listing market. A more concrete, though speculative, scenario valuation could look to acquisition multiples for B2B crypto infrastructure companies that achieved critical distribution, such as the reported acquisitions of portfolio trackers or trading terminal businesses. This outcome is contingent on the company successfully transitioning from a community rewards platform to a trusted, fee-generating infrastructure layer for the industry (scenario, not a forecast).
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Key traction metrics (volume, rewards) are cited by a single exchange publication [MEXC]. Partnership with Crypto.com is confirmed [Crypto.com, December 2025]. Profitability and backer claims require further independent verification.
Sources
PUBLIC
[PitchBook] Cede Hub 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/523349-74
[Wellfound] Gabriel Begazo Profile | https://www.angel.co/
[MEXC] What is Cede Hub? A Complete Guide to the First Trade-to-Earn Platform | https://www.mexc.com/announcements/article/what-is-cede-hub-a-complete-guide-to-the-first-trade-to-earn-platform-17827791529304
[Crypto.com, December 2025] Crypto.com Exchange Partners with CEDE Hub | https://crypto.com/us/company-news/cryptocom-exchange-cede-hub
[Station F] Cede Hub is hiring! Find job and internship opportunities | https://jobs.stationf.co/companies/cede-labs
[Paris Blockchain Week, 2023] Paris Blockchain Week 2023 | Interview with Gabriel Begazo | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMeKGhetzSw
[Cede Hub] Cede Hub - Trade | Hold | Earn | https://cedehub.io/
[BeInCrypto] Article on Cede Labs products | https://www.iofinnet.com/press-release/io-finnet-and-cede-labs-partner-to-transform-multi-exchange-portfolio-management-for-institutions
[Cede Labs GitHub] Cede Labs · GitHub | https://github.com/cedelabs/
[RocketReach] Cede Labs Information | https://rocketreach.co/cede-labs-profile_b7bfd234c53a07e6
[Ariel B. LinkedIn] Ariel B. - Cede Hub | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ar-cede-3785b9276/
[io.finnet] io.finnet and Cede Labs Partner to Transform Multi-Exchange Portfolio Management for Institutions | https://www.iofinnet.com/press-release/io-finnet-and-cede-labs-partner-to-transform-multi-exchange-portfolio-management-for-institutions
Articles about Cede Hub
- Cede Hub's Trade-to-Earn Platform Crosses $400M in Volume for Crypto Projects — A Paris-based team backed by GSR and Anagram is building a new liquidity engine, with Crypto.com now on board.