Bobby Ong

More ways for AI agents to access crypto data efficiently! 🔥 Our team shipped CoinGecko MCP, x402 API, and now the CoinGecko CLI. AI needs reliable, structured crypto data to do useful things. If you're building AI agents in crypto, @coingecko API should be your data layer.

When we broke past $75k earlier this week, I thought we go away from the doom & gloom of this bear cycle at least for a few weeks. But it’s so short lived and we are now below $70k again 😭

Bootstrapping CoinGecko: Bobby Ong on Integrity, Surviving Crypto Cycles, and Playing the Long Game In this episode of When Shift Happens, I sit down with @bobbyong, co-founder and CEO of @coingecko, to discuss how he bootstrapped one of crypto’s most trusted data platforms with just $200 and no venture capital. Over the course of the conversation, Bobby reflects on discovering Bitcoin in 2013, building CoinGecko through multiple brutal market cycles, resisting the many shortcuts that exist in crypto, and why playing long-term games with long-term people may be the only way to survive an industry designed to destroy most companies. Discovering Bitcoin and Questioning the System Bobby’s journey into crypto began shortly after graduating from university in London, where he had studied economics during the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Like many students, he had spent years learning how the traditional monetary system worked, covering everything from how banks function to how interest rates are set, and how governments manage financial stability. But the moment he started reading about Bitcoin in 2013, something didn’t quite add up. Tech founders on forums like Hacker News were talking about Bitcoin as a completely new form of money, one that could fundamentally change how financial systems worked. That contradiction sparked his curiosity. “I thought, did I just spend three years studying something that might already be obsolete?” Bobby recalls. Reading the Bitcoin Whitepaper helped him understand the idea more clearly. What stood out to him were two key properties: self-custody and fixed supply. For the first time, individuals could hold money that didn’t depend on banks or governments. As Bobby explains: “The money you have in a bank account isn’t really your money. It’s an IOU from the bank to you.” Bitcoin, by contrast, allowed individuals to hold and transfer value independently. Combined with the hard cap of 21 million coins, the system represented something radically different from the monetary policies he had studied in school. Building CoinGecko with $200 In 2014, Bobby and his co-founder, TM Lee, decided to build a simple website that tracked cryptocurrency prices and data. The cost to start the company was about $200, just for a domain name and server costs. “We were just two guys, $100 each, and a dream,” Bobby says. The first version of CoinGecko looked very different from the platform people know today. Early on, the founders tried to build complex scoring models that ranked cryptocurrencies based on developer activity, social signals, and community engagement. But over time, they discovered something important: Users didn’t want complicated ranking systems; they simply wanted reliable price data. That realisation led the team to simplify the product dramatically, focusing on the metrics users actually cared about: price, market capitalisation, and trading volume.That focus would later become one of CoinGecko’s greatest advantages.' Bootstrapping While Keeping a Full-Time Job For the first several years, CoinGecko wasn’t Bobby’s full-time job. He continued working as a digital marketer while building the platform on the side. Part of that decision was practical: he had a scholarship bond requiring him to work for five years after graduating. But the experience also forced the founders to grow the company cautiously. Rather than raising venture capital and hiring aggressively, they built the product slowly while learning how the crypto market behaved. When the ICO boom exploded in 2017, traffic surged, and the platform began generating enough revenue to support the founders full-time. That was the moment they finally went all-in. Surviving Crypto’s Brutal Cycles Crypto markets are notorious for their extreme volatility, and projects often appear and disapear with the cycle. Bobby believes the key to survival is simple: “Never get liquidated,” he says. “The moment you’re out, you’re out.” In practical terms, that means building companies with long runways and conservative spending habits. Many startups operate with 18- to 24-month runways. In crypto, Bobby believes that isn’t enough. “You need at least three to four years of runway,” he explains, because the market’s boom-and-bust cycles can last that long. CoinGecko deliberately avoided over-hiring during bull markets, choosing instead to conserve resources so the company could survive downturns. That approach helped the platform survive multiple crypto winters while competitors disappeared. The Long-Term Reputation Game One of the most striking parts of Bobby’s philosophy is his emphasis on reputation. In crypto, shortcuts are everywhere. Projects can easily manipulate listings, promote questionable tokens, or profit from insider information. Bobby acknowledges that the temptation exists. “The easiest and fastest way to make money is to grift in crypto,” he says bluntly. But those strategies rarely last. “A lot of companies are one-cycle companies in crypto,” he explains. “But to survive multiple cycles and play long-term games with long-term people—it’s very rare.” CoinGecko has tried to build trust instead. That commitment was tested when the company discovered an employee accepting bribes for token listings. Once the evidence was confirmed, the company terminated the employee and implemented strict controls around listing approvals. The incident reinforced Bobby’s belief that integrity requires constant vigilance. The Moment CoinGecko Broke Through Although CoinGecko had existed for years, the company’s real breakthrough came in 2021. At the time, the crypto ecosystem was shifting from centralised exchanges to decentralised finance. Protocols like Uniswap, Curve Finance, and Balancer were launching new tokens that weren’t listed on traditional exchanges, and most data platforms weren’t tracking those assets. CoinGecko decided to solve the problem. Instead of relying on exchange APIs, the team built systems to pull data directly from blockchains, which was a difficult technical challenge at the time, but it gave CoinGecko a crucial advantage. “For about six months to a year,” Bobby explains, “we were the only place tracking many of these tokens.” As DeFi exploded, traders increasingly relied on CoinGecko to track prices across decentralised markets. The company’s reputation in the industry grew rapidly. Competing with CoinMarketCap Despite its success, CoinGecko still operates in the shadow of CoinMarketCap, which launched earlier and remains the most visited crypto data site. Bobby acknowledges the challenge. CoinMarketCap’s early media coverage and search engine dominance gave it a powerful advantage. But CoinGecko has focused on competing in a different way: accuracy and independence. Because CoinMarketCap is owned by Binance, some users view it as an acquisition funnel for the exchange. CoinGecko positions itself differently. “We do what we think is right for the community,” Bobby says. For experienced crypto users and developers, he believes the difference becomes clear over time. Playing the Long Game After more than a decade building CoinGecko, Bobby has a simple view of what it takes to survive in crypto. Persistence. “Anyone can start,” he says. “But can they last?” For Bobby, the real secret isn’t complicated strategy or market timing. It’s the willingness to keep building through multiple market cycles, sometimes for years at a time. “Life is a marathon,” he says. “You build habits and processes that allow you to go the long way.” 👉If you enjoyed reading the summary, head over to When Shift Happens on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform to access the full convo.

Tempo chain just launched and our team is fast to integrate and support this on GeckoTerminal, CoinGecko and our API. Excited to see how this chain grows in the coming weeks

@FoxyPenguinApe @coingecko @PenguAsia You are doing great work for Pudgy Asia too! Pudgy won't be where it is today without you and @AaronTeng hard work and effort building the Asia community!

Building a data giant like CoinGecko is one thing. Turning it into an IP is next level🦎 @bobbyong is doing something that reminds me a lot of Luca Netz’s vision What people might not know, he was humble enough to support the sponsorship for my very first Malaysia event A real Web3 pioneer and OG @pudgypenguins legend 🐧

Super happy to see this podcast go live! This is the longest and most in-depth interview I've ever done. @KevinWSHPod is one of the best interviewers in town and I really like his interview style as he manage to get so much stories and insights out of me, way beyond the usual stuff that I normally say in other interviews. Watch it and subscribe to his show!

@elvis_osawe @PancakeSwap @Uniswap @HyperliquidX Yeah been busy. But will be tweeting more moving forward!

@bobbyong @PancakeSwap @Uniswap @HyperliquidX Amazing job Bobby, just a quick one. I noticed you haven’t been tweeting that much or active on X lately, I hope genuinely you’re fine? Sending you warm regards from Doha, Qatar .

Several DEXs are now ranking among the top 10 crypto exchanges by trading volume 🔥 Over the past six months, @PancakeSwap and @Uniswap broke into the Top 10 spot exchanges, while @HyperliquidX became the first perp DEX to enter the Top 10. CEXs still dominate liquidity today, but the gap between off-chain and onchain trading infrastructure is narrowing faster than many expected. The data tells the story - deep dive into our 2026 CEX & DEX Trading Activity Report: gcko.io/drryepf

P/S - This exchange data is also available via the CoinGecko API for teams monitoring liquidity across venues and building market intelligence tools. Learn more: gcko.io/ikmjfcd

@George_harrap Glad to hear you manage to find a new home for SolanaFloor to continue the Solana coverage

Glad that Solanafloor continues and we were able to get the acquisition done with a solid ecosystem team It is in good hands x.com/SolanaFloor/st…

Since the start of 2025, crypto exchanges have lost over $2.4B to hacks & exploits. But the way these failures happen looks very different between CEXs & DEXs. CEX incidents were most often tied to compromised private keys, social engineering, or custodial failures. DEX exploits tend to stem from smart contract vulnerabilities or protocol design flaws. In other words, both models carry risks, but the attack vectors differ significantly. For the full picture, check out our CEX & DEX Trading Activity Report 2026: gcko.io/drryepf

. @bobbyong on why @coingecko has the edge over CoinMarketCap : "They're a user acquisition layer for Binance - we just try to do the right thing for the community" Data accuracy. More coins. And now Gecko Terminal on top... Podcast out this week!

This week, I'm releasing a 1 and a half hour conversation with @bobbyong the Co-founder and CEO of @coingecko, the world’s largest independent cryptocurrency data aggregator, tracking over 18,000 assets across 1,400 exchanges. Bobby built one of crypto's most relied-on companies from Kuala Lumpur, kept his day job for five years, never took a cent from VCs, and still has his co-founder 12 years later. We talk about: - Why Bobby threw out his economics degree the moment he graduated - The real reason CoinGecko never raised VC money - How a bribery scandal inside CoinGecko's own listing team forced Bobby to rethink everything - The cycle survival playbook - why 18-24 month runways kill crypto companies - What almost killed CoinGecko in 2016, why Bobby put the company up for sale - Whether CoinGecko is for sale or not... And much more…. Podcast out this week

Our research team at CoinGecko just published a deep dive into the state of CEX and DEX trading activity. What stood out is how quickly DEXs are closing the gap. → Spot market share doubled over the past two years. → Perps share expanded fivefold in the same period. While CEXs still dominate with ~$80T in annual volume, the shift toward onchain trading is becoming harder to ignore. A notable milestone is @HyperliquidX, @PancakeSwap, and @Uniswap breaking into the Top 10 spot and perps exchanges, something that would have seemed unlikely just a few years ago. Do you think DeFi will one day surpass centralized exchanges? Give the report a read and let me know your thoughts 👇

@gutomartino Yeah you said it well. Just blowing away the money. Idk even buying a mansion is way worth it than this

@bobbyong Just park this money on Aave and have a good time. Machi is a clear example of a retarded who, by god's mistake, managed to become wealthy.

How do you blow away $74m in wealth just trading I don't understand. There is so much good that you can do with this money than just blowing it on Hyperliquid 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

@cryptohuntz Guess it's just karma doing its thing if it's not his to begin with in the first place

@bobbyong most of it probably wasnt even his (see: cream finance)

@TdcXdegen Until there's nothing more to double back again

@bobbyong Bruh is a gambler. If he loses, he can just double till he wins it all back

@scottfakhoorian Eventually he will run out of money. Can only pull this stunt so many more times

@bobbyong Every time I see a post like this, he whips out another $10M from somewhere

@yoitsyoung Yeah karma doing its thing. Easy come, easy goes

@bobbyong Was never his to begin with