Real Vision founder Raoul Pal said the current crypto selloff looks closer to a panic-driven correction within a bull market than a full trend reversal. Drawing from 38 years of trading experience, he said his framework is simple: hold core positions, add on sharp drawdowns, and stay away from leverage.
Pal said he first bought Bitcoin in 2013 at $200. After that entry, Bitcoin moved higher briefly and then fell 75%. In the 2014 bear market, it dropped another 87%. He pointed to those moves as examples of how violent declines can still occur inside longer-term upside cycles. During the run that carried into 2017, he also lived through three separate drops of 35% to 45%.
His own trading history shaped a strong preference for holding
Pal said he exited his Bitcoin position around $2,000. That sale still locked in roughly a 10x gain versus his original entry, but Bitcoin went on to surge again later that year after he had sold. He later re-entered during the Covid-driven market crash at $6,500, a price that was 3.5 times higher than where he had exited. He described that sequence as a costly mistake and used it to explain why he places so much weight on staying invested.
For Pal, the first lesson in owning an asset with a long-term uptrend is not to overtrade it. He argued that HODL became a durable crypto principle for a reason. In his view, active attempts to time every move can easily lead investors to miss the largest part of a cycle.
He compared the current mood to the April-July 2021 drop
Pal said the market backdrop now feels very similar to April through July 2021, when Bitcoin fell 50% and sentiment sank sharply. By November 2021, the market had returned to record highs. He cited moves from that rebound period: SOL rose 13x from the lows, Ether doubled, and Bitcoin posted a 150% advance into a new high.
That is why he sees extreme pessimism as a test of conviction rather than proof that the broader thesis has failed. His second major lesson is to buy into weakness. Even if entries are imperfect, he said building positions during major drawdowns and lowering the average cost basis can produce better long-term results than rigid dollar-cost averaging.
Risk tolerance matters, and he drew a hard line on leverage
Pal did not frame his own strategy as universal. He said investors should ask whether they can withstand another 50% decline from current levels. If the answer is no, then reducing exposure may be the more appropriate move. He described that idea as building a portfolio with no regrets.
He also said stress, fear, and self-doubt are part of the process, and position sizing has to match personal risk tolerance. In his view, leverage is the real danger. A leveraged investor can lose all principal, which turns a deep drawdown into permanent damage rather than volatility that can be survived.
Alongside position management, Pal repeated another familiar crypto principle: DYOR, or do your own research. Without independent conviction, he argued, it becomes much harder to stay in the market during its darkest stretches.
Pal said he is still adding exposure
On what he is doing now, Pal said he is buying more digital art and plans to add more crypto assets next week. He said he bought during the Covid crash, during the 2021 decline, and again in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 when prices pulled back. He said this time is no different.
His message was blunt: investors who still believe the world will become more digital, and that fiat purchasing power will weaken over time, need to accept volatility as part of owning crypto. Sharp selloffs, in that framework, are a chapter in the investment story rather than the whole story.