51 Insights – What Matters in Digital Assets Raoul Pal’s 2026 Playbook: Dollar, Debt, and Crypto's Big Debasement Trade
Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️
“We’ve now got the single most powerful factor in all of investing that’s ever existed… Everything is tied to this debasement of currency.”
That’s Raoul Pal, CEO of Real Vision and one of the most respected macro thinkers in the world, explaining why the entire financial system has converged on a single trade: outrun the collapse of fiat.
In this episode, Raoul lays out a sweeping thesis: The world is caught in a massive sovereign debt spiral that can only be managed by persistent currency debasement. What looks like asset appreciation is really just denominator decay, the optical illusion of rising prices in a world of falling money.
“The S&P 500 isn’t going up. The dollar is going down. Once you see that, you can’t unsee it.”
This isn’t a bug; it’s a feature of the current financial system. This singular macro force makes investing in scarce, exponential assets like crypto not just an opportunity, but a necessity for capital preservation and growth.
We trace this macro supercycle from its origins in the global debt boom to its next chapter: tokenized networks, AI agents, and a replatforming of capital itself.
The game is no longer about picking assets based on traditional fundamentals; it’s about choosing the best vehicles to outrun the devaluation of fiat currency.
About Raoul: After forecasting the 2008 financial crisis and the 2012 European sovereign debt crisis, Raoul delved into the world of Bitcoin. He authored the first-ever institutional macro report on Bitcoin in 2013 and has since transitioned from a diversified macro investor to being almost entirely focused on digital assets. After a distinguished career that included managing hedge funds at Goldman Sachs, he retired from active fund management at 36 to launch the research service Global Macro Investor. He later co-founded Real Vision to democratise financial knowledge for all.
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🎧 Jump to the best parts
* (04:22) → The Endgame of Currency Debasement and Debt: Raoul explains the inescapable math of sovereign debt, how the post-2008 debt spiral locked central banks into perpetual money printing, and why central bank liquidity is the “single most powerful factor in all of investing.”
* (07:46) → The $100 Trillion Destination: Why crypto is the single most powerful macro trade of all time, with a network adoption trend line pointing to a $100 trillion asset class within eight years. We are only 4% of the way there.
* (13:12) → Why Gold Preserves Wealth but Doesn’t Compound It
Raoul contrasts gold and crypto: gold protects against debasement, but crypto grows through exponential network effects. In a system where fiat is structurally melting, compounding > storing.
* (20:10) → Metcalfe’s Law, Not DCF: Why traditional valuation models fail for crypto. Raoul argues that blockchains are technology networks, not companies, and their value is driven by users and transaction volume, the same law that governs Google, Amazon, and Tesla.
* (31:37) → The Economic Singularity: Raoul’s long-term outlook. The debasement trade will continue until ~2032, forcing a mass migration to blockchain rails before AI and robotics fundamentally rewrite the rules of GDP growth.
* (33:37) → The Four-Year Cycle is Now Five: A provocative and data-backed argument for why the crypto cycle has elongated. It was never about the Bitcoin halving; it was about the global debt refinancing schedule.
* (44:29) → NFTs Are Humanity’s Contract Layer: Moving beyond digital art, Raoul explains why NFTs will become the largest part of crypto networks, underpinning everything from financial derivatives and brand loyalty to your digital identity.
Important Links
* Website: https://raoulpal.com/
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raoul-pal-real-vision/
* Real Vision: https://www.realvision.com/contributor/raoul-pal
🎙️ In our conversation, we discussed:
* The endgame of currency debasement and debt
* The “biggest macro trade of all time”
* Why gold is a store of value but not a compounder of wealth
* Why the four-year crypto cycle is dead
* Why the current cycle’s slow, steady build-up may actually be a sign of deep structural strength
* Which L1s are going to win
* How NFTs will transform brand loyalty, social graphs, and the creator economy.
* Why AI and blockchain will be the solution to our debt spiral
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My biggest takeaways from this conversation: