Key Takeaways
- Raoul Pal said on Sept. 18 that BTC has broken its downtrend against the Nasdaq 100 on weekly charts.
- His call came two days after the Fed hiked rates 25 basis points to a 3.75% to 4.00% range.
- Pal named crypto outside his top 10 investments and believes there are other bigger opportunities heading into 2027.
What Did Pal Actually Say?
The macro investor laid out his case in a six-post thread on X on Friday, adding:
My view for a couple of months is that BTC outperforms the NDX going forward as fiscal dominance and the need to refinance meets the ‘Everything Code.’ As rates broke higher, crypto rose sharply… there is signal in that.
Most traders expect higher rates to hurt bitcoin, but Pal is arguing the opposite, and the past week gives him some material to work with.
Why Would Rate Hikes Help Bitcoin?
The week was supposed to be bearish given the Federal Reserve raised rates by 25 basis points to 3.75% to 4.00% in a 12-0 vote, its first hike since July 2023, and 16 of 18 policymakers signaled at least one more increase before year-end. Two days later, the Bank of Japan lifted its policy rate to 1.25%, the highest in 31 years.
Bitcoin’s price, however, went the other way, and after trading near $75,580 before the Fed’s decision, bitcoin breezed past $81,000 yesterday, a level it has since maintained.
Pal’s explanation is fiscal dominance, the idea that when a government is carrying enough debt, higher interest costs become a problem only fresh liquidity can solve. Debt has to be refinanced, and refinancing at higher rates means more money has to be created somewhere.
In Pal’s view, bitcoin is the asset most sensitive to that flood. He has previously pointed to bitcoin’s 87% correlation with global liquidity, compared with 97% for the Nasdaq, a gap he reads as bitcoin carrying more upside when liquidity turns.
Where Is the Signal on the Chart?
Pal backed the thesis with three charts. The first plots BTC against the Nasdaq 100 in a log regression channel going back to 2013, with the ratio sitting near the bottom of that range after a slide through 2026. The second zooms in on the weekly ratio, which Pal says “has broken the downtrend vs NDX… and put in some perfect DeMark lows.”
To this point, DeMark refers to the Tom DeMark 9-13 indicators, counting tools traders use to spot when a trend is running out of steam. A “13” buy signal near a low is read as a sign that sellers are exhausted. Pal’s chart shows those counts printing around the ratio’s summer lows, followed by a break above the falling channel that had capped it since mid-2025.
What Is “the Bigger Game”?
Pal’s third chart is not about bitcoin at all. “But the bigger game in town is OTHERS,” he wrote, referring to Tradingview’s index of total crypto market value excluding the top 10 coins. His chart put that market at about $226.27 billion, up 13.67% on the week, pressed into the tip of a triangle that has formed since the 2021 peak and runs toward early 2027.
He also had a message for frustrated holders, stating:
“Yeah, holders are down, but if you are in larger protocols and are complaining you are down, you don’t understand time horizon or volatility or risk-reward,”
Pal has been leaning toward the altcoin side of the market lately, including calling Zcash bitcoin’s “younger sibling,” repeatedly.
The Finer Print
Pal’s calls have historically been big ones, but not all of them have landed on schedule. For instance, he has argued that a bitcoin supercycle is more likely than ever in 2026 and floated targets as high as $450,000 by the year’s end. He did, however, add a warning of his own before closing out his arguments:
Patience, as ever, is rewarded. Leverage never is. Don’t F*** This Up.