That Blockchain Week in Dubai is still ongoing. On stage, macro analyst Raoul Pal made an encouraging remark—that 2026 will see a “super liquidity cycle.” According to him, this current downturn is just a breather in the middle of the bull market; the real main surge hasn’t arrived yet.

Sounds great, right? But outside the venue, the market sentiment isn’t nearly as optimistic.

Let’s start with the debate that just ended. CZ and gold diehard Peter Schiff went head-to-head: one argued that Bitcoin’s value comes from the consensus of hundreds of millions of users worldwide, while the other insisted that gold is the only true hard currency. Interestingly, after their argument, they actually talked about potential cooperation—maybe that’s a kind of tacit understanding between the old and new forces.

Now, let’s look at the data. ETH is currently stuck in a liquidation cluster exceeding $1.3 billion, with both bulls and bears squeezed together—a small move could trigger a chain of liquidations. If you still dare to add leverage at this point, you must have a strong heart. Pal also warned earlier: don’t play too aggressively.

There’s also been a strange incident recently—MEME coin PEPE’s official website was hacked. Even though MEME coins are high-risk to begin with, this incident has poured cold water on the market. Even more surprising, some have observed that VCs are starting to use traditional financial metrics like “price-to-sales ratio” to evaluate crypto assets. This kind of overly rational behavior often signals that sentiment has hit rock bottom.

So, the current situation is highly divided:

On the surface, big players are painting grand liquidity blueprints;
Within the industry, supporters of old and new assets are still debating fundamental logic;
On the charts, high leverage, security vulnerabilities, and extreme pessimism are intertwined.

Historically, those truly major cycles never start smoothly amidst cheers. They always take shape slowly in the midst of chaos, division, and repeated testing.

What do you think? Is this the “mid-bull correction” Pal mentioned, or is it an even more complex phase? Share your thoughts in the comments.