The Market is Experiencing Significant Changes Leading to Global Growth — Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget

Introduction. At the beginning of 2025, the cryptocurrency market experienced an unprecedented surge: Bitcoin's price exceeded $100,000 for the first time, and numerous altcoins reached record highs. Countries began to discuss the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies and even the formation of national Bitcoin reserves, granting digital coins a semi-official status. However, by the end of April 2025, the crypto market entered a phase of a prolonged "bear" trend, although it remains poised for another growth phase. Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, shared insights on key events in the market, new trends, and future development prospects.

Summary

• Optimistic forecast: Despite recent upheavals, Gracy Chen is confident about the prospects of the crypto market and anticipates global industry growth in the long term. The CEO of Bitget notes that current changes lay the groundwork for future industry peaks.

• Perspective on the situation: In her view, the cryptocurrency market is currently experiencing a natural decline following a sharp rise. Hopes for a rapid increase in BTC prices in the coming months may not materialize—quick accelerations are improbable until new drivers emerge.

• Meme coins and AI tokens: The industry exploded with the success of meme tokens (such as those associated with the Trump family) and a surge of interest in AI tokens. These hype-driven assets attracted significant liquidity, although they do not provide real market value, warns the expert.

• Scams and manipulations: The first months of 2025 saw major scandals, including a $1.5 billion exchange hack and liquidity schemes (Jelly, OM), causing significant losses for investors. These incidents emphasized the importance of reliable reserves, transparency, and risk management in the crypto market.

• Tips for the downturn: To survive the bear market with minimal losses, Chen recommends revisiting investment approaches. She advises keeping funds in protective assets (stablecoins, tokenized gold, reliable bonds) and diversifying portfolios—this helps mitigate risks and wait for market recovery.

• Fresh trends for 2025: Regulation and crypto integration into the financial sector, taxes on crypto profits, enhanced security (including biometrics and AI), the creation of Bitcoin reserves by countries, and a protracted bear trend—these are key areas every investor should be aware of. These factors will shape the industry's evolution over the next year.

Meme Coins and AI Tokens Have Exploded the Industry

The major trend at the beginning of 2025 was the launch of several meme coins associated with prominent personalities (for example, the former US President Donald Trump and his family). Their stunning success created thousands of millionaires in just days, adding zeros to Trump's net worth and siphoning liquidity from other Web3 projects. This phenomenon dominated cryptocurrency news during the winter. In just a couple of weeks, tokens like TRUMP and MELANIA saw their prices skyrocket, capturing the entire community's attention.

"Such meme tokens do not add value to the market and only allow certain individuals and their entourages to earn more," Gracy Chen notes.

Another equally discussed trend was the surge of AI tokens, which gained popularity amidst the frenzy surrounding artificial intelligence. Just months ago, few knew about such coins, but today they are attracting widespread attention from investors. Developers promise that new AI-based solutions will help analyze the market, replace trading bots, and even teach trading based on expert decisions. While these technologies are still under development and haven't received widespread application, tokens from companies creating AI solutions are already surfacing on exchanges and generating significant interest.

"AI tokens represent an intriguing fusion of technology and finance. Projects like SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol showcase the potential of artificial intelligence to expand the utility of blockchain. However, it is crucial for investors to thoroughly study the underlying technologies, the team's competence, and the real use cases of such tokens before investing," commented Gracy Chen.

On Scams and Liquidity Games

In the first four months of 2025, the market witnessed several significant frauds and scam projects that collectively cost investors billions of dollars. The most notable incident was the hack of the major crypto exchange Bybit, resulting in the theft of around $1.5 billion. Bitget was the first to assist its competitor, transferring 40,000 ETH just ten minutes after the problem was discovered—helping stabilize the liquidity of the affected platform and stabilize the situation.

Additionally, fraudulent manipulation cases were noted involving two tokens that could have led to severe losses for their holders. The first was the Jelly token on the Hyperliquid platform. In March, one of the "whales" made a significant purchase of JELLY for approximately $4 million USDC at a price of $0.0095 (well below market price). This spurred a surge in prices: within just 15 minutes, the token's price skyrocketed more than fourfold. The Hyperliquid system flagged this position as problematic and activated its HLP (Hyperliquid Protection) mechanism to stabilize the market. However, just two minutes after HLP was triggered, the situation not only did not improve but worsened. The mechanism seized the unprofitable position but did not trigger an Automatic Downside Liquidation (ADL) because risks were spread across multiple storage systems without individual limits. As a result, the HLP system itself incurred significant losses.

"This case involving Hyperliquid exposed critical vulnerabilities in liquidity management within the industry. At Bitget, we always emphasize maintaining reliable liquidity reserves and transparent risk management practices to protect user interests and ensure stability even in times of market turbulence," Gracy Chen highlighted.

The second suspicious token was OM from the Mantra project. Due to manipulations, its price initially surged dramatically before crashing by nearly 90% (from ~$6.3 to ~$0.50). Investors accused the Mantra team of causing this collapse, believing they could have initiated a conspiracy or insider dumping of coins. At the peak of the panic, the value of OM fell rapidly within five minutes, leaving the market in uncertainty.

"The exact causes of what occurred remain unclear. In my opinion, several factors were at play—highly concentrated token ownership, insufficient transparency in management, and a sudden influx of a large volume of coins to exchanges, coupled with liquidations during periods of low trading volumes. We observed millions of OM tokens being moved to exchanges, which is a clear sign of insider dumping," noted Gracy Chen.

Notably, the Mantra team denies all allegations and states that an investigation into the price drop incident is ongoing.

How to Survive the Bear Market

The bear trend may persist until early autumn this year, occasionally providing brief uptrends. Nevertheless, such market behavior is not unexpected; it is rather a regular outcome following a turbulent rally. To endure the prolonged decline with minimal losses, investors must reassess their strategies and focus on protective assets.

"During a bear market, protective assets typically perform best—such as stablecoins or sectors with low volatility and stable demand (infrastructure projects, blockchain security projects). Additionally, tokenized gold and high-quality bonds can provide stability and safeguard capital. Diversification among such instruments reduces risks while maintaining growth potential alongside the market," recommends Gracy Chen.

Chen emphasizes that particular attention should be paid to tokenized gold. Many long-term crypto investors choose it for profit realization and to avoid unnecessary losses during downturns.

"The tokenization of gold through digital assets—such as PAX Gold—offers investors a way to hedge risks in unstable markets. These tokens have a direct link to the value of physical gold while providing liquidity and divisibility that traditional investments in precious metals lack. This makes them particularly appealing during downturns," explains Gracy.

Fresh Trends to Know

When discussing upcoming trends, the following key directions can be highlighted:

1. Regulation and integration of cryptocurrencies into the financial sector. Legal regulation of the market is gaining momentum. For instance, the European Union has recently approved a set of rules for the circulation of crypto assets (the MiCA regulation), which regulates the processes for using cryptocurrencies, user protection, and more. This is an important step towards the widespread adoption of digital currencies. Meanwhile, the US is discussing the creation of a national Bitcoin reserve similar to those of El Salvador, Venezuela, and several other countries.

2. Taxation of cryptocurrencies. For a long time, income from digital asset transactions remained in a "gray zone" and was not subject to taxation. However, the situation began to change a few years ago. Many countries are introducing a special tax on profits from cryptocurrency sales. Such regulations have already been established in Russian legislation. For instance, if you sell Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency and earn a profit, be prepared to pay tax to the budget.

3. Security and data protection. Despite significant advancements in cybersecurity, cases of crypto exchange hacks and cryptocurrency theft (including from wallets) continue to occur. Exchanges and technology companies will continue to bolster data security, even implementing AI technologies for biometric user identification (facial/eye recognition, voice, and fingerprint verification).

4. Creation of Bitcoin reserves by states. In 2025, the USA plans to form its own strategic reserve of Bitcoin—without utilizing taxpayer money (according to the Trump administration). It is expected that, following the US, some European countries will also join in creating reserves in BTC.

5. A prolonged bear trend until the end of the year. Currently, there are no serious indications of a new price surge on the market, so the leading cryptocurrency's price is likely to remain relatively stable—around ~$73-78 thousand. Many analysts believe that Bitcoin will trade without sharp spikes until the end of 2025, gradually responding to macroeconomic factors and industry news.

Conclusion. The crypto industry encompasses numerous segments—from investments and trading tokens to mining and blockchain solution development. All of these are influenced by the described trends. No matter how long the current downturn lasts, Gracy Chen's prediction remains positive: the changes taking place are strengthening the market and creating a basis for future growth. Thus, to stay informed and keep pace with the rapid developments in the industry, it is vital to keep abreast of trends and news in the cryptocurrency market—there is still much excitement on the horizon.