Analyst Raoul Pal believes that the cryptocurrency trade is round “2017 Google” for Bitcoin and even earlier for Ethereum (ETH).
In 2017, Google (Alphabet) had already confirmed its dominance in search and digital promoting, however its full community potential was removed from totally realized (cloud, AI, and so forth).
Pal has implied that Bitcoin in 2025 is at the same stage: the community is robust, adoption is accelerating, however the whole potential just isn’t but totally captured.
Ethereum is even earlier in its lifecycle, that means its community adoption and utility are much less mature than Bitcoin’s. Therefore, the “upside potential” is even better.
“If it seems like a duck…”
In keeping with Raoul Pal, Bitcoin and Ethereum behave like networked platforms. Simply as Google, Meta, or Amazon generate worth largely from the size and interplay of their customers, crypto’s worth comes from its community results.
“If it seems like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s most likely a duck…” Pal mentioned.
Metcalfe’s Legislation states that the worth of a community grows roughly with the sq. of the variety of customers.
Pal argues that the first driver of crypto worth isn’t money stream or earnings, however adoption.
Therefore, the extra individuals use Bitcoin or Ethereum, the extra useful the community turns into.
Bitcoin has restricted intrinsic money flows (no firm issuing dividends), however the community itself turns into exponentially extra useful relying on how many individuals undertake it as cash, a retailer of worth, or collateral.
The aforementioned corporations are additionally network-driven. For Google, the worth comes from its ecosystem of customers, advertisers, and information. With Meta, the community results stem from social media customers.
The purpose is that these are platforms the place the size of the community drives the majority of the worth, not simply earnings or conventional stability sheets
Crypto matches this mannequin “virtually by definition”, so treating it like a conventional cash-flow enterprise misses the core driver of worth, in accordance with Pal.