Bitcoin is evolving and could soon surpass its market capitalization, according to Gracy Chen, managing director and CEO of Bitget.
Speaking to Rob Nelson at the Round Table, Chen discussed how the cryptocurrency market is changing with facility adoption, regulatory changes, and new real-world use cases.
“Bitcoin will definitely outperform gold in terms of market capitalization at least for some time, perhaps this year or the next few years,” Chen said. “That means Bitcoin will grow another 2-3 times more in terms of price.”
At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s market capitalization is around $1.87 trillion, while BTC is $94,210. In comparison, the market capitalization for gold is estimated at $19.9 trillion, calculated based on the price of $2,963 per ounce and the sum of underground gold storage.
Bitcoin needs to increase by about 965% (or 10.65 times its current market capitalization) to match gold’s total market capitalization of $19.9 trillion.
Chen explained how Bitcoin’s role has changed over time. Bitcoin, which was initially considered “digital gold,” was considered a risk-fighting asset. However, with the approval of the Spot Bitcoin ETF in 2024, it has become more correlated with traditional financial markets.
“In the early days (Bitcoin) was considered digital gold. Now it’s still digital gold in my opinion,” she said. “But now it seems like a more dangerous asset. It correlates with much more US stock markets than before.”
She noted that institutional adoption plays an important role in this change. “There’s a more flow coming in from the Tradfi space through the ETF,” she said. “Since 2024, the majority of the drive has come from the US from the new administration, either from ETF inflows and outflows, or from a cryptographic regulation and policy perspective.”
Despite market volatility, Chen is optimistic about the broader application of blockchain technology beyond cryptocurrency trading. She highlighted payments as an area where blockchain already offers practical benefits.
“We’ll probably use faster code and use many other banks to achieve that, especially when doing cross-border transactions, compared to traditional payment systems. “She said.
She also pointed to artificial intelligence as another sector where blockchain can drive innovation. However, she pointed out that many of Crypto’s so-called “AI tokens” today are unsustainable.
“In the world of Web2, we’re looking at Sik in China. Google’s Gemini, ChatGpt, everyone is innovating. All of these products have real use cases,” says Chen. “We need to check similar cases of cryptographic, AI real-world applications.”