🌍 Raoul Pal: 4 Billion Crypto Users & $100 Trillion Market Cap by 2030?

[ed]

Crypto adoption is accelerating — and according to Raoul Pal (Global Macro Investor, Real Vision), the numbers could get massive within the next decade.

Adoption vs. the Internet

Crypto wallets are being compared to IP addresses during the early internet boom.

Pal notes crypto users have grown 137% annually for the last 9 years, hitting 659M by end of 2024.

By comparison, internet adoption back in 2000 was just 187M users (76% annual growth).

Projection: 1B users by 2030, scaling to as many as 4B users (1/2 the planet) in the longer term.

The Big Bull Case

Pal forecasts crypto market cap → $100 trillion by 2032.

Catalysts:

Debasement → fiat losing value drives capital into scarce digital assets.

Adoption → network effects, more users = exponential growth.

His take: “Debasement explains 90% of price action; adoption explains 100% of outperformance.”

The Pushback

Critics argue wallet count ≠ real user count.

Anyone can spin up thousands of wallets.

Many individuals keep multiple wallets (one user reported creating a new one every 6 months).

Andreessen Horowitz’s data suggests the real active monthly user base is closer to 30M–60M, not hundreds of millions.

Triple-A’s research estimated 560M users by end of 2024 — but again, definitions vary.

Takeaway for Investors

If Pal’s $100T market cap vision is anywhere close, crypto could 20–30x from today’s ~$3.5T cap.

Even if adoption slows and only 1B people use crypto by 2030, that’s still 1/8 of humanity in the asset class — an enormous shift.

Key alpha: adoption curves don’t need to be perfect — even a fraction of Pal’s scenario could make early positioning wildly profitable.

Question for the forum: Do you buy Pal’s “4B users, $100T cap” thesis — or is this just another case of bullish hopium that ignores messy real-world adoption?

[Maxwell]

Fascinating perspective! Comparing crypto wallets to early internet IPs really highlights the potential network effect. Even a fraction of Pal’s adoption numbers would be massive for the market.

[Nahiar806]

Critics have a point — wallet counts can overstate real users. But adoption trends still matter; even 1B users by 2030 would dwarf most traditional assets in scale.

[rafihasan]

Whether it’s $100T or not, the key takeaway is positioning early in networks with real utility. Adoption curves rarely move linearly, but those who anticipate them stand to gain the most.

[Nahid10]

Raoul Pal might sound overly bullish, but his internet adoption comparison is on point. If we even get HALF of his projection — say 1–2B users by 2030 — that’s still a financial revolution. $100T might be optimistic, but a multi-trillion expansion feels inevitable as institutions, governments, and consumers pile in.