Global liquidity is the driver of higher prices, and higher rates are stalling this crypto bull run.
If you’ve spent any time on Crypto Twitter news this week, you’ve seen the question “are we in a tech bubble?” bulldoze its way across timelines.
Global macro investor and Real Vision founder Raoul Pal is never shy to cut through the noise. He waded in with a thread that’s as blunt as it is contrarian. “No, it’s not a bubble in tech stocks.”
Raoul Pal isn’t buying the hysteria, and, after digging into his argument, it’s hard not to see where he’s coming from.
Everyone’s on high alert for late-1990s redux. The old “parabolic chart, late-night CNBC, it must be a tech bubble!” trope.
But Pal makes one thing crystal clear: we’re nowhere near the lunacy of the dotcom mania. “We are less than 1 standard deviation from the trend,” he writes, drawing a sharp line between now and those turbocharged Nasdaq years when valuations turbo-boosted way past fundamentals.
In short? Move along. There’s nothing to see here, at least not the kind of historic irrational exuberance that ends in tears.
The heart of Pal’s thesis isn’t some viral chart or single magic ratio. It’s deeper. He zeros in on the engine behind the tech melt-up.
And by extension, the market’s refusal to crash and burn: global liquidity, driven by epic levels of debt. “Debt drives liquidity via debasement,” he reminds us, not in a doomsday way, but as a kind of inevitability baked into the financial cake.
This isn’t just about the Federal Reserve’s magic money taps, either. As he points out, “this is not just a US game.”
Back in 2017, he reminds us, it was China and the UK, not the Fed, boosting global liquidity, letting “number go up” even as US central bankers were tapping the brakes with rate hikes and quantitative tightening. The global pie is what matters.
“Total Global Liquidity is THE game,” he insists, a level-up perspective that neatly explains why markets stay bid even as the crypto news headlines scream crisis.
His words echo those of another seasoned market participant, Arthur Hayes, who recently argued that the four-year cycle was dead, and global liquidity is the driver of the crypto market.
If you’ve caught yourself wondering why 2025’s run hasn’t been a euphoric, table-thumping melt-up, Pal’s got a macro reason for that too. “This time in the US, rates are too damned high,” he observes.
Gaps in liquidity, debt maturities pushed out by a pandemic-era borrowing binge, and a late-arriving “debt roll over” all mean the fuel for a true market blow-off just isn’t in the tank yet.
Say thank you, COVID-era zero rates, for letting the Treasury push maturity walls further out into the future.
It all adds up to a cycle that’s “lacklustre thus far,” as Pal puts it. Not dead. Not a tech bubble. Just delayed. Anyone rooting for a rerun of the 2021 everything-bubble blowoff is going to need more patience.
One of Pal’s most grounded observations is a warning against hubris: “this time is different” is a dangerous idea, and he’s not taking the bait.
According to Pal, it’s the same playbook as ever. Debt maturities, liquidity cycles, these shape the fate of rallies and crashes alike. The danger comes not from unique new variables, but from forgetting the old ones still matter most of all.
But that doesn’t mean you hurl yourself at the market and hope for a soft landing. Raoul Pal has a more surgical playbook.
The thread isn’t just a victory lap for staying the course when everyone else panics. It’s a reminder, delivered in full Raoul Pal style, that the only cycle that matters is the cycle of debt and liquidity.
If “number go up” is the unwritten rule, it’s because the world keeps printing, refinancing, and rolling over debt. And expanding the pool of global money sloshing towards anything remotely promising yield or growth.
For investors on edge about the next crash, Pal’s message is calming and stern: the real risk isn’t in a phantom tech bubble, but in misreading the script.
If you’re primed for disaster and miss the ramp in liquidity, you’ll be left on the sidelines as the next era unfolds.
And if you think you can time it all exactly, well, be prepared to get schooled. Markets remain the great humbler.
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