Bitcoin to hit 1 billion users by 2025? Market expert gives his insight

• Raoul Pal compares crypto adoption with internet adoption.
• Solana’s rise in the previous market cycle underscores the importance of adoption.

The ongoing crypto bloodbath has sent shockwaves through the financial landscape.

According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin [BTC] along with several major altcoins including Ethereum [ETH], Ripple [XRP], Cardano [ADA], etc. experienced substantial double-digit declines over the past week.

Despite these challenges, crypto proponents remain optimistic about the long-term prospects of digital assets. But the skeptics prompt this question: How are cryptocurrencies gaining popularity so quickly, despite any real-world use cases? 

Raoul Pal’s optimistic stance on crypto adoption 

In response, Raoul Pal, co-founder and CEO of Real Vision, in a recent conversation with the Bankless podcast, said, 

“Wealth is a use-case. People are making money, that money gets recycled into the economy. That’s good!” 

Well, this is not the first time, Pal has talked about crypto adoption, in fact in an X (Formerly Twitter) post in early April, he shed light on how crypto adoption is overshadowing internet adoption. He noted, 

“On days like today, just remember that crypto is still being adopted at twice the speed of the internet and should reach something like 1 billion users by the end of 2025…” 

This outlines how institutional players are influencing the trajectory of cryptocurrency adoption, despite regulatory challenges. 

Crypto adoption concerning past cycles

However, the interesting curve here is the intersection of cryptocurrency adoption with past cycles and how it is a reliable predictor for the crypto market. 

Remarking on the same, Pal exclaimed,

“Things that are earlier on the adoption curve, outperform.” 

Pal further highlighted the breakout successes in the previous market cycle, highlighting Luna, Solana, Avalanche, and possibly Polygon as notable contenders. He said, 

“Who was the winner? Well, the one that got the most adoption- Solana.” 

This underscored that despite starting from a relatively low position, Solana [SOL] due to its significant adoption, experienced a considerable increase in value. 

Pal’s suggestion to navigate the different crypto cycles 

In conclusion, delving into the cyclical nature of the cryptocurrency market, and the potential “crypto winter”, Pal suggests that maintaining exposure to the market during bear markets, while securing gains as necessary, can lead to optimal outcomes. 

He ended by suggesting, 

“You just don’t need the stress! So, take some chips off the table, just run the rest, and then add when you can.”