<\/p>\n
Macro guru Raoul Pal says that retail investors have a chance to get ahead of venture capitalists and blue-chip investors before the crypto markets skyrocket.<\/p>\n
In a new interview<\/a> on the Overpriced JPEGs podcast, the former Goldman Sachs executive says that for the first time, retail traders are scooping up crypto assets before institutional investors place their positions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve never been given the opportunity to own the infrastructure layer, and own it before the institutions. I always talk about this \u2013 we\u2019re front-running the institutions, and it\u2019s not like it\u2019s some mass illusion or delusion, I know it because I speak to them all day, they\u2019re all coming, all the investors are coming and we get the privilege for the first time in our lives to own this because everything else is (VC) venture capital. <\/em><\/p>\n Early stage is VC \u2013 to invest in VC you need to be an accredited investor, not only that, but most VC funds won\u2019t take you unless you\u2019ve got a certain amount of capital, so it just knocks everybody out of the actual largest part of the economic high that gets made, and then eventually something goes public and only a few of those companies make a lot of money, so we\u2019re disadvantaged as ordinary people.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n Pal goes on to describe the risk curve associated with digital assets, saying that it\u2019s very much like the risk curve of traditional assets during tough market times. He also likens Ethereum (ETH<\/a>) to the US economy \u2013 a growing ecosystem\u00a0rife with activity.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, as the economy slows down, the Fed starts cutting, people will buy treasury bills, bonds, and then they\u2019ll buy corporate bonds, then they\u2019ll buy junk bonds, then they\u2019ll buy emerging market junk bonds, and then they\u2019ll buy private credit \u2013 that\u2019s the risk curve. <\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s exactly the same in crypto \u2013 so [the] first part of crypto spring, people buy Bitcoin and then when they get a bit of confidence and things [are] working, they go down to Ethereum, and Ethereum starts outperforming Bitcoin\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n Before you know it, you start going down the risk curve \u2013 the good projects, Solana, or whatever in the middle [like] Polygon and whatever [else] starts doing well, and then you go to Cowboy Land and you go to everything, so that\u2019s the risk curve. <\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s really interesting is once you start to understand that crypto is an economy \u2013 it\u2019s just a digital nation state and Ethereum is actually the larger of the nation states. The Bitcoin economy has more money but actually, it\u2019s like Switzerland right, just like old people storing their money. Well, Ethereum there\u2019s a lot of stuff going on and so the Ethereum economy acts like the US economy.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n