Bitget CEO Gracy Chen says Strategy , formerly MicroStrategy’s aggressive Bitcoin strategy has made it one of the biggest players in the market, holding more than 2% of the total BTC supply.
“MicroStrategy is also another massive whale investor institution, and it holds more than 2% of the total Bitcoin supply already today. And it’s probably still increasing, being not only one’s choice in the US stock market to hold Bitcoin, but it’s the largest and it’s the earliest,” Chen said during a conversation with Roundtable host Rob Nelson.
Chen noted that MicroStrategy’s approach has set a precedent, with other companies now attempting to follow its playbook.
“I also saw lots of copycats on that who want to copy the MicroStrategy strategy,” she added.
On Feb. 18, MicroStrategy confirmed that it did not sell any shares of its Class A common stock under its at-the-market equity offering program last week and did not purchase any additional Bitcoin. As of Feb. 17, the company holds 478,740 BTC, acquired for approximately $31.1 billion at an average price of $65,033 per Bitcoin.
Institutional whales are entering the Bitcoin market
Nelson pointed out that institutional investors, including banks, are increasingly behaving like whales — large entities that can move markets with a single trade.
“I feel like the banks can be a whale. I know technically they’re not, but I mean, I feel like you’ve got some big institutional entities that act like whales. They come in, they make a move, and it’s massive,” he said.
Chen agreed, explaining that institutional interest in Bitcoin is expanding beyond hedge funds and crypto-native firms to traditional finance players like pension funds, university endowments, and family offices.
“It’s just like different whales from the stock market, from crypto-native individuals and institutions, and even address changes,” she said. “And then the traditional financial industry, even family offices, pension funds, schools, university endowments—today, they have all started to look into holding Bitcoin either through ETF or through MicroStrategy, like these kind of US stock-listed companies, and through holding Bitcoin directly.”
The risks of high leverage in crypto derivatives
Beyond Bitcoin accumulation, Chen also spoke about the dangers of high-leverage derivatives trading, warning that even sophisticated investors can get wiped out in volatile markets.
“For our users, we also want them to be aware of the risk involved with high leverage. Even very, very rich people and very sophisticated traders, if they have maybe a leverage, even just two times or three times major tokens, they’ve seen margin call, they’ve seen their principal run to zero,” she said.
Chen cited a past Ethereum price crash that may have been triggered by margin calls on large investors.
“It’s highly suspected that the previous big drop of Ethereum — like one day, 30% off when Donald Trump mentioned that there is going to be tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico. We see a 30-day drop of Ethereum, and it’s highly suspected that there were some big wealth money that got margin called, and they just lost their principal, and that further drove down Ethereum price,” she explained.
