Raoul Pal: Digital assets have gone nowhere since May

• Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal believes that the crypto market is yet to top and a fresh rally is likely in the first quarter of 2022, with institutional big money the likely driver before markets become frothy.

Global Macro Investor founder and CEO Raoul Pal has said that people getting extremely bearish as the crypto markets struggle should note that the game hasn’t changed.

In his opinion, much of the sell-off pressure is down to investors taking new positions and rebalancing, given the space has seen “a good year of owning risk.”

Bitcoin price reached highs of $69,000 in early November as did many other top cryptocurrencies following a fresh momentum on the back of regulatory tailwinds presented by the SEC’s approval of the first futures-based exchange-traded funds in the US.

A downturn has since followed, with Bitcoin breaking below $50,000 to highlight the general rout seen over the past month or so. Some analysts say the market is on the threshold of a bear market, but many, including the Real Vision CEO, suggest otherwise.

According to Pal, most investors will realise that cryptocurrencies have generally “gone nowhere since May,” with the exception likely to be with those lucky to have nailed a pump.

He notes that crypto’s bullish run from July lows currently sees most crypto assets trading well below their year-to-date peaks.

“But we haven’t seen a blow-off top with record participation. We have seen speculation of some size in NFT’s but that is mainly people who already have ETH and have profits to burn,” Pal said in a Twitter thread shared on Tuesday.

The investment strategist adds that the industry is seeing meaningful institutional adoption, with a spike in new use cases that should see more investments in Q1 push prices higher. If this happens, the analyst believes there’s likely to be an explosion of new money into the market and potentially see crypto become frothy.

Pal advises that it might be time to “sit tight, add on dips and if we see another sharp rise in the entire space, reduce your more speculative holdings and rotate to higher quality.”

https://twitter.com/RaoulGMI/status/1470553490166628360 

He also believes that the market is geared for a new investment phase that should see focus shift from retail to institutional adoption. The scenario has slowly built towards this end for much of the year, but the “big herd” will really make an entry in 2022.