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Gracy Chen doesn’t see Bitcoin going anywhere dramatic. The Bitget CEO told the Trade Secrets podcast that Bitcoin will probably stay within $10,000 to $20,000 of wherever it’s trading right now by the end of the year — and she’s calling that her “more responsible” prediction.
That’s a pretty tight range for an asset that’s spent years whipsawing traders. But Chen’s reasoning isn’t really about Bitcoin itself. It’s about everything around it. Interest rates, broader economic conditions, the kind of macro pressure that’s increasingly bleeding into crypto markets the same way it moves equities. Bitcoin’s growing ties to traditional finance have made it more sensitive to that stuff, she said, and right now the picture isn’t clear enough to bet on a big breakout — or a big collapse.
She said predicting whether Bitcoin ends up above or below $70,000 is genuinely hard when potential rate hikes are still on the table. Rate hikes tend to push investors toward safer assets, drain liquidity from riskier trades, and generally make life difficult for speculative markets. Bitcoin, for all its “digital gold” framing, hasn’t fully escaped that dynamic.
Skepticism on U.S. Government Bitcoin Buying
The more pointed part of Chen’s remarks was about Washington. She’s skeptical — pretty openly — that the U.S. government will actually go out and buy Bitcoin for national reserves before President Donald Trump’s current term wraps up.
That’s notable because the Trump administration did set up a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve back in March 2025. The move got a lot of attention. But Chen’s read on it is more cautious than the headlines suggested at the time. The reserve was built using forfeited BTC — coins seized through law enforcement actions — not through any active market purchases. And that distinction matters a lot.
Per BitcoinTreasuries.NET, the U.S. government currently holds approximately 328,372 BTC, with the bulk of it coming from those same law enforcement seizures. So the reserve exists, but it was basically assembled from assets the government already had sitting around, not from a deliberate decision to go buy Bitcoin on the open market.
Chen’s view is that actually purchasing Bitcoin — writing checks, going into the market, building a position — would require a whole different level of political lift. Lawmakers would need to debate it seriously. There’d need to be consensus that didn’t currently exist. The administration might be crypto-friendly in attitude, but friendly attitudes don’t automatically translate into legislation or formal policy.
“From a policy perspective, it’s probably unlikely,” she said. “I just don’t see it coming right now.”
The Gap Between Crypto-Friendly Optics and Real Policy
That quote is worth sitting with. The gap between the administration’s general posture toward crypto and what it’s actually willing to do through official channels is real, and Chen’s pointing directly at it.
It’s not that Washington is hostile. It’s that converting goodwill into something like a formal Bitcoin purchasing program involves congressional buy-in, budget considerations, legal frameworks, and the kind of political consensus that’s hard to build fast. The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve was a significant signal — no question. But signals and procurement orders are different things.
And Chen’s probably right that the complexity here gets underestimated. Even with a crypto-friendly White House, the machinery of government moves slowly on financial decisions of this scale. Any move to actively buy Bitcoin from the market would mark a genuinely historic shift in how the U.S. treats the asset. That’s not a decision that happens quietly or quickly.
The reserve’s current composition — almost entirely forfeiture-based — kind of tells the story on its own. The government has Bitcoin because courts gave it Bitcoin. That’s a very different posture than a treasury department deciding to allocate capital toward BTC as a strategic asset.
For now, the 328,372 BTC sits there. Mostly untouched. Mostly a product of drug busts and fraud cases rather than any deliberate investment thesis.
Chen’s broader point about Bitcoin’s macro sensitivity is worth taking seriously too. The asset has matured enough that it can’t fully decouple from interest rate cycles, inflation data, or broader risk-off sentiment in markets. That integration with traditional finance is a double-edged thing. It brings institutional money in, sure. But it also means Bitcoin moves when the Fed moves, which limits how far it can run — or fall — in isolation.
Her $10,000-to-$20,000 range prediction isn’t exciting. It’s not the kind of call that goes viral. But it’s grounded in something real: the idea that Bitcoin’s near-term price action is probably more about Jerome Powell than it is about any on-chain metric or halving math.
The U.S. government currently holds approximately 328,372 BTC, per BitcoinTreasuries.NET.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Bitget CEO Gracy Chen’s Bitcoin price prediction for year-end?
Chen predicts Bitcoin will stay within $10,000 to $20,000 of its current level by year-end, citing macroeconomic uncertainty and potential interest rate hikes as the main factors limiting big price moves.
How much Bitcoin does the U.S. government currently hold?
Per BitcoinTreasuries.NET, the U.S. government holds approximately 328,372 BTC, with the majority accumulated through law enforcement seizures rather than open-market purchases.
Why It Matters
Gracy Chen's forecast for Bitcoin emphasizes the impact of macroeconomic factors, particularly interest rates and broader economic conditions, on cryptocurrency prices. This perspective highlights the increasing interconnectedness of digital assets with traditional financial markets, suggesting that external economic pressures may continue to overshadow intrinsic market dynamics. A stable outlook for Bitcoin could signal a period of consolidation in the crypto space, potentially affecting trader sentiment and investment strategies as year-end approaches.
