Raoul Pal, CEO and co-founder of Real Vision, predicts that nonfungible tokens (NFTs) would behave like “high-end property” in the established economy, surpassing Ether during bull markets in cryptocurrencies.
The former JPMorgan executive provided an overview of his key areas of optimism for NFTs in an hour-long YouTube video that was posted on February 20. These areas included the asset class’s primary use cases, its underlying technology, and its prospective performance relative to Ether.
According to Pal, certain NFTs are likely to outperform the market during crypto boom cycles, much as “high-end property” frequently does when the “economy recovers.”
“I can now convert my ETH into a JPG or an NFT. Yet why? Yeah, since when the economy starts to thrive and people have more money, they tend to buy pricey high-end property. Think of a [Cryp]Punk as a high-end property in London, New York, Hong Kong, or wherever it is.
And it frequently performs better than the rest of the market. Also, I believe that the ETH economy will experience a similar scenario.
He emphasized how important organizations like CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) have developed into status symbols in the cryptocurrency community, similar to owning a fancy home, car, or item from a well-known brand that grants access to exclusive clubs or what he called “mini network-states.”
He said: “Humans are stupid and we love to socially signal stuff,” adding that NFTs are a “means of owning property in the ETH economy.”
Looking back, the former hedge fund manager claimed that in 2022, when he first “saw the power of what they are and what they can do,” such as the ability to transfer “value” through blockchains and automatic smart contracts, NFTs began to catch his attention.
He also mentioned the use of NFTs in contract resolution, pointing out that smart contracts may essentially do away with superfluous third parties while blockchain-based ledgers can provide verifiable transparency on what has been agreed upon between people.
The intriguing thing about the smart contract component of an NFT is that it essentially enables the settlement procedure to be automated in code and resolves without the need for a third party, negating the requirement for courts, attorneys, notaries, and accountants.
When he started using NFTs, Pal said that he has invested around 10% of his ETH holdings in “quality NFTs,” such CryptoPunks and BAYC NFT.
Given that they were able to maintain a respectable level of value throughout the downturn market, he said that these collections would potentially provide greater upside potential than downside danger. He also thinks that ETH’s price would probably rise in the future.
“When you look at the pricing of Crypto Punks and Bored Apes in ETH terms, they’ve been remarkably consistent. Yeah, they did experience a blow-off high before returning and trading 65 ETH continuously for all time. And I find that intriguing given how little further they fell. In June, during the major crypto collapse, they had a strong increase. Apart from that, they have simply recovered and have remained at 65 ETH. Hence, whatever ETH does, they are simply reflecting it, he said.
