Will Bitcoin Crash To $40k Next? Ben Cowen Warns Bear Market Not Over
Summary
Market Outlook: The guest expects a weak midterm year for crypto with Bitcoin likely trending lower into summer and potentially experiencing a peak-to-trough drawdown near 70%.
Late Cycle Dynamics: He argues we are in a late business cycle where risk rolls down the curve—alts bleed to Bitcoin, Bitcoin to stocks, and stocks to gold—amplified by oil spikes and the Fed’s dual mandate constraints.
Energy Outperformance: Energy is highlighted as a relative winner in late-cycle phases, with Bitcoin historically bleeding to the energy sector in every midterm year and potential for continued strength as seen in prior cycles.
Gold Strength: Bitcoin and equities are underperforming versus gold, with the stock market breaking down against gold similarly to 1973 and 2008, suggesting further risk-asset weakness and sustained gold leadership.
Correlations and Flows: Bitcoin’s correlation with the NASDAQ has weakened, DXY links are inconsistent, and spot ETF holdings have not supported price as OG sellers meet limited new retail demand amid falling social interest.
Monetary Policy: Rate cuts are pushed out and liquidity remains tight; a crisis may be required to reset the cycle, but that would likely pressure risk assets first before any policy-driven recovery.
Indicators and Positioning: On-chain metrics (realized/balance price, MVRV, composite risk) suggest the bottom likely comes when risk is much lower; beware countertrend rallies that precede swift breakdowns in bear phases.
Transcript
every bare market has been a little bit more manageable. I'm in the camp that the current one will probably end up being around a 70% drop. I think that if people kind of understood that crypto has always existed in a early business cycle environment and why there was not really a rotation into altcoins is because we're in a late business cycle. In a late business cycle environment, oil going up can lead to a short-term spike in inflation, right? But usually what it does is it actually then causes markets to to collapse. >> If I were to ask you what would need to happen for Bitcoin to essentially double to 150k before June, we were to put a finger on something, what would that be? >> I think in order >> our next guest has correctly called the top in Bitcoin in October 2025. And now he's back with us to give us his updated outlook for 2026. It's not shaping up to be a great year for Bitcoin and crypto, he says. So, we're going to find out where the bottom is and how Bitcoin will perform into the summer this year. We're also going to be talking about monetary policy, alternative assets in general, and the dollar and the business cycle. Very important topics. Ben Cowan is back with us. He is a founder of Into the Cryptoverse, and we're going to be going into a deep dive into the cryptoverse today. Check out Ben's last interview with me, linked down below, aired January 1st, beginning of the year. This video is sponsored by Koshi. It is a fully regulated platform that lets you trade our real world events from economic data to political outcomes. Sign up and use my code Lin Lin. Link in the description down below or scan the QR code here. New users will get $10 deposited to your account when you trade $10. Traders can put money down to their favorite teams, events, elections, and more in all 50 states, including California and Texas in over 140 countries. Ben, welcome back. And again, I encourage people to check out Ben's last call with me, uh, link down below, which he made on my show, late December, early January. Welcome back, Ben. Good to see you again. >> Yeah, thanks for having me here. Pleasure to to come back as always. >> You were on the show late December 2025. We aired that interview January 1st. I think it was one of the first videos on my channel this year. So, link down below. Check out Ben's views. Um, you were correct last year in calling for the Bitcoin uh bare market of of the fall, which was a spot-on call. Um, I believe you're not as bullish now as you are in prior years. You're still kind of saying that Bitcoin is in a bull uh bare market uh or, you know, midterm medium-term bare market. Uh, correct me if I'm wrong. And you're and you're expecting the 200 day uh 200 week rather 200 week moving average to return sometime in 2026. Um, things could look like the April 2025 low potentially around the low to mid7,000s, which is exactly where we are now. So, my first question is this the bottom? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Um, I think that that Bitcoin will likely go lower as the year goes on. And I want to throw up a few charts to kind of provide why I'm I'm not I mean, I will say this, like I don't think it it makes sense to be as bearish as before Bitcoin had a 50% drop, right? But with that said, um I I think just looking at it objectively, midterm years historically are not great for Bitcoin. So, uh to give you an idea of of some of the things I'm looking at, I I think we could first start off with say the year-to- date ROI of Bitcoin, just kind of keeping it simple in 2026 and then looking at the average of prior midterm years. And we can even overlay one standard deviation off of that average. And like you can see that Bitcoin generally speaking is following the average return of prior midterm years. So this is kind of that the midterm years for Bitcoin historically have always been like a a major window of weakness for whatever reason. Whether you want to blame the four-year cycle, the having liquidity, the election cycle, no one really knows for sure, but to me it still looks like it's tracking the average of prior midterm years. The good news is as measured from the peak the draw down hasn't been as you know quite as bad. So if we look at the current draw down from the peak and we average out say the last three peaks with one standard deviation we're actually not dropping as much but I think there's a reason David that we haven't dropped as much and it's because uh first of all Bitcoin experiences diminishing losses from one cycle to another one bare market to another. every bare market has been a little bit more manageable. Uh so to look at at this screen right here, you can see the first bare market for Bitcoin was about a 94% drop. The second one was about 87. The next one was about 84 and then the next one was about 77. So I'm in the camp that the current one will probably end up being around a 70% drop, maybe plus or minus 4 to 5%. Uh, so if we get down to those levels, then I I probably would I imagine I would sort of flip my views and no longer be bearish on on Bitcoin. But look, I know there's some indicators that that people are pointing to that might suggest the low is in. But I I feel like for every indicator that we can find that might suggest that, it just seems like there's so many others that would suggest otherwise. And I I want to show you a couple more charts. One of them is the ROI of Bitcoin as measured from the low. And I think we probably talked about this chart in the last video that we did. How this cycle, this past cycle lasted 1,062 days. The cycle before that one lasted,59 and the cycle before that one lasted,68. And if you just extend this out to the lows, it would still suggest that we have, you know, some more months ahead of slightly lower highs and slightly lower lows for Bitcoin. So to give you just like a couple of examples of >> charts that I think would make more sense cuz this is more of a time based thing. This chart in terms of a price based thing. Some of the interesting charts that are are some um onchain charts to look at. Historically the price of Bitcoin bottoms whenever the after the Bitcoin of the the Bitcoin percentage of supply and profit and loss after they have crossed you you start looking for a low. You don't historically want to look for a low until after they have crossed. And then the other, you know, one of the other things we can look at is something known as the balance price and the realized price. So if you look at Bitcoin's prior bare markets in 2011 and in 2014, 2018, even in 2020, and in 2022, Bitcoin went below both the realized price and the balance price. And you can see that so far this cycle that has not yet happened. So I I don't really think this time's going to be different. I have a feeling Bitcoin will go will face these macro headwinds going into the summer and perhaps later this year we can turn things around. >> I'd like to spend a few minutes and talk about uh what drives capital flows in and out of Bitcoin. So take a look at my screen here. Um I'll just show you a Bitcoin chart real quick. So this is BTC and as you can see basically since October, Bitcoin has not had anything to do with the NASDAQ which uh prior to I guess now has been um as you can see by the chart uh one of the dominant narratives for why Bitcoin has been moving. It's been trading as a leverage play to tech stocks. Uh not so much this year. Now if you overlay this with the DXY, there's still no strong definitive relationship with the DXY. Although I have noticed that ever since you the Iran war uh broke out uh about a month and month and a half ago uh well just actually 3 weeks ago uh Bitcoin has been uh trading more in line uh with the DXY and to a certain extent earlier in uh 2024 as well uh whereas prior to 2024 uh that narrative never really took shape. So I'm wondering why in the last two years there's been more periods than not. Of course, I'm not going to say it's perfectly correlated with the dollar because it's not. But I'm just saying that there have been more frequently um or more frequent periods in which Bitcoin and the dollar have moved together than in prior years. Was this a result of the uh Bitcoin uh treasury companies uh being a new trend uh or something else here? >> I mean, there's always there's always a narrative that we can find, but I mean, the reality is the dollar is doing the same thing it did in in 2017 and 2018. If you look at what the dollar did, I mean, I don't have the chart in front of me, but if you look at the dollar, I can pull it up. If you look at what the dollar did in 2017, the dollar topped in um I think January, and let me just show you on my screen really quick here so that everyone everyone can see what I'm talking about. Um so, if you look at if you look at the dollar in 2017, and again, I'm pointing this out because, you know, we have the same basically the same administration in place in the United States. Uh yeah, dollar DXY topped January 2017. Uh the DXY found a top January 2025 and and then the dollar was weak and and you can see it remained weak for a while just like it did this cycle. And what happened was the dollar ended up bottoming in February of 2018. Not that dissimilar from what we just saw happen with the dollar in this midterm year. And so what I think is going to happen is I think the dollar is going to probably start trending back up here maybe to around like 105 106 somewhere in in that ballpark. Maybe a little maybe a little higher maybe like 107 or something. But the you know there's periods where markets are correlated and periods where they're not. And like just because Bitcoin usually goes up when the dollar goes down or just because you know vice versa is always true or typically doesn't mean it's always true, right? can have periods where one's going down and the other one's going down or one's going up and the other one's going up. So, I I don't really put a lot of faith into the idea that it it it matters a whole lot. I I think the bigger the bigger thing that's happening right now with Bitcoin as it relates to other risk assets is is you'll see Bitcoin is bleeding against other risk assets. So, like for instance, if you were to look at Bitcoin's valuation against the NASDAQ for example, right? that's been bleeding since July. So, at this point, Bitcoin has now dropped about 55% against the NASDAQ since July. Bitcoin has been dropping against gold as well, right? You can see it's been dropping against gold, it's now down about 60%, but it was down about 70%. I don't think that these short-term bounces by Bitcoin on its gold valuation or Bitcoin on it say its NASDAQ valuation, I don't think they represent a new trend, right? If you look at just to give you an example, I mean, if you look at at Bitcoin's gold valuation, it always rallies in March of the midterm year, right? Here's March of 2022 and here's March of 2018. We typically see rallies by Bitcoin against gold in March of midterm years. So, I don't really think, you know, it's it's easy to want to look at these correlations in the short term and try to figure out what's happening. But I I think that right now we're we're sort of in that phase where everyone thinks that or a lot of people think that the bare market might be over um because of this rally, but we we've seen these rallies before in midterm years and they they didn't actually mean that the bare market was over. It it still had, you know, plenty to go after that. So, I I do think it's relevant to think about that. And one of the reasons, David, why this cycle has felt so different and why there was not really a rotation in the altcoins um is because we're in a late business cycle environment. And I I think that if people kind of understood that crypto has always existed in a early business cycle environment and that's what led to the prior alt seasons as they call it. If people understood more of like this time the reason it feels different is because this time it's a late business cycle environment and in a late business cycle environment risk rolls down the curve rather than up it. Right? So early cycle you you go from like the lowrisk things and people take on more and more risk until they get all the way out in the risk curve and then you get a blow up top. But in a late business cycle environment, the speculative excess that dies off first and that's why altcoins have been bleeding to Bitcoin, Bitcoin's been bleeding to stocks and then stocks have been bleeding to gold. >> Is there a direct relationship between spot Bitcoin ETF flows and prices? It looks like flows have improved in recent weeks, but the price is still hovering sideways or trading sideways. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't, you know, if you look at at I think we track some of the stuff on on the website, but I haven't like I don't see any like if we were to separate this out and just look at at say ETF holdings, you know, ETF holdings right now for Bitcoin aren't that different than where they were back in October, but yet the price is 50% lower. So you have a you you potentially have a scenario here where there's a lot of people that came in and bought the ETFs, but the OGs that have been in Bitcoin for 10 years are are selling to them essentially. Um there's not a lot of new retail participation that is actively following this up. Yes, there are some people buying ETFs, but the problem right now is that when you look at like social interest, it's just been trending down since 2021. This this chart here shows the social interest of of Bitcoin. It topped in May of 2021 and it's been trending down ever since. So, while yes, there's people that are buying the ETFs, there's not really a lot of new people coming into the space like we've seen in prior in prior market cycles. >> Well, what if inflation fears continue to rise? So let's suppose oil stays high and uh we have a situation where the CPI uh headline and core start to rise. Um what impact does that have on risk assets including Bitcoin? >> Yeah, I mean it's not good basically and basically 2026 is just a weak year for crypto. I think going into next year 2027 it'll probably look a little bit better. Um but I think this year it's just easy to recognize there's macro headwinds. A lot of the rate cuts that were getting priced in previously have now been pushed off to like the end of 2027. Um, and if you look, this is a a business cycle chart that I I de I developed and it's and this anyone can recreate it. It's just the S&P 500 divided by the unemployment rate squared multiplied by US interest rates multiplied by the US inflation rate year-over-year and then normalized by M2. And when you look at this chart, like you can pretty clearly see the business cycles, right? Like you can see the business cycles in the late '60s and the '7s and and here the one is in the '9s and then here's the dot and here's the financial crisis. And the only other time in history where we got a glimpse the only other time in history where crypto got a glimpse of a late business cycle environment was in fact in 2019. But what happened back then we saw Bitcoin top out in June 2 months before quantitative tightening ended just like this cycle. It topped in October 2 months before quantitative tightening ended in December. So the same thing's playing out. It's just that we got a glimpse of what would happen back in 2019 and higher risk assets did not start outperforming again until after the business cycle was over. The problem is that historically for the business cycle to be over, you need some type of of crisis that then allows for looser monetary policy and looser or like looser liquidity conditions. Right? If we have this like liquidity risk metric that shows you that this has been a very tight liquidity regime for a while and in order for those lowrisk assets to start underperforming high risk, you need something that brings this liquidity metric all the way back down to the lows because until that time happens, you're you're still likely going to see alts bleed to Bitcoin, Bitcoin bleed to stocks, and then stocks bleed to gold. and and we actually just had a pretty major event happen uh since the last time that you and I spoke about about this. I think we I don't know if I if I showed this chart the last time we spoke, but um it's a chart that I think everyone should be looking at. And it's the stock market's valuation against gold. And what you'll see what you'll see is that it it basically is breaking down from the same valuations that it broke down at in 1973 and in 2008. And historically this is not a good thing for risk assets, right? I mean like recently it's bounced back up to back test where it broke down from. But historically what happens after the stock market breaks down against gold is that the stock market then gets you know its own sizable correction which is I believe kind of what we're in right now right you can see in 1973 when it broke down we saw stocks get a correction and of course we know what happened in08 um it's a long process right it doesn't play it doesn't play out overnight but you can see that in order for things to change um something needs to happen and and one of those things that could be happening Right now, what you mentioned is something like the price of oil because in in all of the prior business cycles, so you look at this chart, these business cycles, if you were to overlay the price of of crude oil on the chart, what you'll notice is that it's in a late business cycle environment when the price of oil spikes that then leads to the beginning of the end of the business cycle. Right? And the reason is because the Fed has a dual mandate. They maximum employment and price stability. When rates when when the unemployment rate is going up, they lower rates. When inflation is going up, they raise rates. What do they do if both are going up together? And as I've said before, I've I've made this chess analogy many times. Um, you know, if if you want to checkmate your opponent, you have to create two weaknesses. If you create one weakness, they can defend that. So, the Fed can always defend against one weakness. It's having to deal with two weaknesses at the same time that ultimately leads to checkmate that leads to the crisis and that leads to the resetting of the business cycle where the higher risk assets, you know, drop a lot and then and then we kind of go into a fresh new market cycle where all the froth from the prior cycle basically just went to zero and then we start a new and the economy um while it while the contractions are difficult, it actually helps reset the economy and keep it healthier for the long term. Just on that note, uh would it be fair to say that if we have both weaknesses, weakening labor market as well as higher inflation, the Fed should defend against inflation because higher inflation will cause a recession anyway. And so in that situation, they would have to just keep rates high. >> The issue right now is is how weak the labor market is. So like if you look at this chart, uh this is total non-farm payroll. I think the I think the labor market's a lot weaker than people think it is. If you look at the year-over-year change in this in this um establishment survey, it's very close to going negative. So like the excess from 2022, 2023, and 2024 is completely gone. And but because of that, because there was all this excess, I feel like it gives people this like false sense of security that there will always be this excess, you know, but you can see that contractions have historically occurred when this metric goes negative and it's it's very close to going negative. Now, if you look at layoffs, they're relatively low, right? You can look at at layoffs uh and discharges in the United States, they're relatively low. You can look at initial claims in the United States and see that they're trending still around 200,000. And I've said before, until they're at 300,000, you can't really call for a recession. But it's the issue is that the stock market going down leads to layoffs. It's not initially anyways. It's not layoffs starting that then leads to the stock market going down. The stock market kind of sets it in motion. and and on average by the time recessions are here once the MBER announces their recession on average the market has already bottomed 15 days earlier at least looking like looking at the average of the last like seven or eight um business cycles. So the weakness though, David, is in is in everything else. Not it's not the hiring. It's not the layoffs, it's the hires, right? If you look at hires, that's been trending down for a long time. You could look at at job openings, that's been trending down for a long time. The weakness is already there, but the reason why we haven't kind of entered that that last phase of the business cycle is because the unemployment rate has only been steadily going up. It hasn't entered into that nonlinear phase, right, where it goes up and there's no way to control it. This so far, this steady rise in the unemployment rate. That's what they wanted, right? That's what the Fed wanted. They wanted to reduce pressures on wage inflation, they wanted to loosen up the labor market a little bit, but now it's loose. And now theoretically if if their mandate was only the labor market, they absolutely would be cutting right now, you know, because we just had, you know, we're about to go negative in year-over-year job growth. The problem is is what you said and that and that's that they have this dual mandate and look, if inflation if inflation starts coming back, that's going to make them not cut as aggressively as they should. And so what what I think could happen in a late business cycle environment, oil going up can lead to a short-term spike in inflation, right? But usually what it does is it actually then causes markets to to collapse, right? And and markets to drop, which then is a more disinflationary impact. If we are to have a secondary wave of inflation like we had in 2022, it's not because the price of oil goes up. It's because they turn the money printers back on in response to trying to save asset prices, right? So, oil could be the reason that then eventually leads to inflation because of the response uh by people to sort of solve if we have this crisis, but oil going up in and of itself in a late business cycle environment. Historically, while short-term inflationary eventually starts to lead to more disinflationary times. >> Okay, I just want to point something else out. Uh this is an article published in uh in February. Uh but it says Bitcoin near pre-election floor as ETF flow stalls. City says this is from CoinDesk. Crypto markets are approaching important inflection points weeks after declines. Uh crypto markets have exhibited the volatility similar to precious metals but without the upside. So um regulation remains a key potential catalyst. Uh we haven't talked about regulation yet which is why I brought this up. uh the fact that the administration is has been supportive of Bitcoin and then Bitcoin is currently at around the same time as the pre-election price uh in 20 late 2024. Does that signal a potential floor? Um from that perspective uh just maybe just comment what we're seeing here. >> No, I don't think any of that stuff matters honestly. I mean long long term long-term is it bullish for the asset class? Absolutely. But the reality is is Bitcoin has mostly just gone down, you know, despite all this stuff. And if you think about it, >> basically this more pro- crypto stance was more so just a way for a lot of influencers to launch memecoins without fear of repercussions. And so I feel like >> I feel like it just further led to the malinvestment of capital in the crypto markets and made people focus on things they shouldn't be focusing on. And because of that, Bitcoin is punishing the market uh and making sure that people get back in line. And that's what it usually does in midterm years. And usually by the end of midterm years, people are back in line and then we start another bull market. But I don't I don't think any of that regulatory stuff really matters for for the for the short-term price action. >> What What is the next memecoin phase, so to speak? In other words, the next altcoin cycle, if that were to appear anytime soon, uh what would that be, I guess, centered on? Uh would it would it would it still be memecoins or do you see another you know another trend emerging? Would it be AI coins? I >> I think I I think to truly have another alt season um and I've been anti- all season for like the last four or five years. I mean I've been on your channel a lot during that time period. I've always said the same thing. I think in order to really have a phase like that again, it needs to be after the current business cycle is over. So basically a lot of the froth should die out this year and then liquidity conditions hopefully can be a lot looser in a future market cycle. But but the problem for altcoins this past market cycle is we were in restrictive territory the entire time. Um you know the Fed funds rate was essentially above the 2-year yield for the entire cycle. And I'm using the 2-year yield as an approximation of the neutral rate. We were also in quantitative tightening until the very end of the bull market. and and so we didn't have the right macro conditions for higher risk assets to really do well next cycle. Could that change? Yeah, it could. Uh in order for that to really change though, I think we need to see the markets kind of unwind further this year. And if they can unwind further this year, then perhaps next cycle we'll go back to what what people remember. But again, there's still a long way between now and then. And if you look at at what's happening with with energy prices recently now we're not even projected to have rate cuts until I think you know mid to late 2027. So it's hard to know. I mean you have these fourear cycles existing within larger business cycles. Um, and right now we're just in the in the postappathetic top decline sort of this like this distrib or this um digestion phase in the crypto markets where it's digesting the bull market that it had for the last 3 years and you know the people that were waiting for an alt season it never happened. And so what it what it shows, David, is that in crypto, the only the only asset that I think is worth holding longterm is Bitcoin because all the other stuff just bleeds to Bitcoin. And the only other time where the other stuff durably outperforms Bitcoin is after a euphoric rally by Bitcoin where retail interest starts to come back. But if you're looking at a chart and you're and you're watching social interests trend down every single year for four years, it doesn't make sense to call for alt season because there's just no one around to buy these coins. Like no one cares anymore. Um and so that's kind of what I I I wanted to communicate to people is look, this is more of a late business cycle environment and this is why it didn't play out like a lot of people were hoping it would. >> Yeah. And by the way, this is just from uh Koshi as a prediction market. When will Bitcoin hit 150K? traders are not optimistic it's going to happen this year. There's basically no chance. So the sentiment right now, this is just to highlight sentiment is not euphoric at all. It's quite the opposite of that. Which by the way may be a contra indicator in itself. I don't know. I'm just playing devil's advocate right now. I've just noticed in the past when no one thinks Bitcoin's going up, that's usually the bottom. But um you've got better indicators to actually track sentiment. What do you use to gauge sentiment by the way? >> Yeah, I think it's it's all about like these mental gymnastics, right? Like I remember back in in Q4 and I think we saw each other in Las Vegas if I'm not mistaken before Q4 and we kind of talked about how Bitcoin would likely top when it always does right in the fourth quarter the post having year and when the fourth quarter came there were a ton of people that were calling for the 5-year cycle and the super cycle and all these things and and they use different arguments right they use things like the money supply lagging M2 they use liquidity conditions Um they used the fact that we hadn't had an alt season yet which is why the market cycle would go on. They used all sorts of things but and one of the main things they used was oh because everyone's predicting the 4ear cycle top it won't happen but then it happened anyways you know and I think there's this reality of like people that are bullish like to assume that everyone is bearish. Like just because the markets say that Bitcoin is unlikely to hit 150k doesn't mean that there's not a lot of people out there that are bullish. Believe me, David, I everyone would know because I post bearish videos every single day and I get caught out by like 20 different influencers anytime I do it. So, it's not true that everyone is bearish. I mean, there's probably a lot of people that are bullish, but they don't think it's going to go to 150K this year, right? They might say, "All right, well, maybe it'll do it by 2027 or 2028." But there's a lot of people that I see online that actually think 60K is the floor. I'm not saying it's impossible for it to be the floor. What I'm saying is that in midterm years, we're going to test that over and over and over again. And because we're only in March, I I think that there's still plenty of time for the rest of this year where we're going to keep testing that 60K level and eventually I think it very well, you know, could break and we could go down into the 40 to 50k range. Um, so and then in January, right, in January, the last time I came on your channel, we were in a counter trend rally, right? We were in a counter trend rally. Bitcoin had already traded up from the low of 81 and I think it was approaching 90. It went all the way up to 90 97 98K. And back then the narrative that I saw on posted in response to my my my videos and the views I was expressing the response was >> well if everyone's expecting the midterm year to be bad it won't be right. And then what happened is Bitcoin topped when it always topped. And the reality is Bitcoin found a low in February. And in every midterm year, Bitcoin has always found a low in February and then it rallied into March. It then formed a lower high and then it went down into the summer. And this happened every single every single cycle. Um, so, you know, I think it's easy to pretend like it's easy for the bears to pretend like everyone's bullish or for the bulls to pretend everyone's bearish. I think it's actually kind of mixed right now. You know, I've seen some polls out there where people will kind of pull people and it's not as lopsided as a lot of people are are sort of making it out to be. I think there's I think there's a lot of people that are convinced it's a bare market, but I also think there's a lot of people holding out um that because alt season didn't happen, we're still going to get that final rotation. And I I just don't think it's going to happen this year. Well, just on mental gymnastics, if I were to ask you what would need to happen for Bitcoin to essentially double to 150K before June, which is in 2 and 1/2 months, um, we were to put a finger on something, what would that be? >> I mean, I don't think it's going to. Um, no, we're not saying it's going to, but like what would need to change? Would the Iran war need to just end tomorrow? uh everything revert back to normal and then um and then I guess and I guess capital flows back into risk assets with the Fed have to ease tremendously um what I mean here. >> I mean okay if the Fed were to print $6 trillion like they did in in 2020 2021 then perhaps that would that would create that environment. The problem is that the Fed the the you know they're not going to do that. the only way they're going to start printing is if there's a crisis. But if you have a crisis, that means the price of Bitcoin goes down, not up in the short term. So, it's almost like the chicken and the egg, right? Like people want the money printing, but in order to have it, you need to have a crisis. And in order to have a crisis, risk assets really need to start start going down. So, I'm not saying Bitcoin can't trend higher at all. In fact, one of the things you often see in uh in bare markets and this is is this is what is is the most difficult part of bare markets. Let me share my screen again. Um >> look at this David. So in bare markets, Bitcoin often spends more time trending up than down. Okay? So like look at November to January. It was generally trending up just like it's been generally trending up for a month and a half now. It's just that when it trends up, it'll sort of bring people into this false sense of security to make them think it's only going to start trending up or continue to trend up and then it just breaks down very quickly without giving people really a lot of time to react, you know, and and so look at the difference in the structure between the bull market and the bare market. All right? So, in the bull market, Bitcoin would generally trend down. You see that? it would generally trend down and then it would just break up very quickly in a very short period of time. Um, but then when we had the market cycle top in October, everything changed. Then Bitcoin trends up and then breaks down. Trends up and then breaks down. So, it's the opposite of what we saw in the bull market where in the bull market it would trend down and then break higher. So, there's been this this this change in market structure. And I'm not saying the market structure won't break. It it will eventually. I just I just think that Q1 of the midterm year is is far too early to call for that to break. >> Fair enough. Where did retail go? By the way, you mentioned several times retail left crypto. What happened? Where did they go? >> I mean, speculative excess just left because prices went down. You could argue they went to AI. I mean, there's a there's a good chance that a lot of the people that left didn't really go to anything else. They just went back to their normal lives, you know, like maybe they just got tired of of chasing, you know, these dreams that were promised to them. Um, they were tired of taking their paycheck and putting it on meme coins and getting robbed. And they eventually just said, you know what, enough's enough. I don't want to I don't want to live this way. I want to provide, you know, for my family in a more um uh a more predictable manner and not rely on like these cash grabs by by a lot of scam coins. And so maybe they just left. I mean, I'm not I mean, some I'm sure went to AI, some I'm sure went to other markets, >> but but there's a lot of people that I know that were interested in crypto in 2021 and now they don't care a thing about it at all. And it's not like they're going and trading, you know, other markets. Um they just they just went other other places. So AI could be an example, prediction markets could be an example. Um there's all sorts of places that that people might have gone. But I think one of the one of the biggest truths is that people just got tired of chasing a dream that was somewhat unrealistic in the short term, but really the dream still exists if they're willing to kind of stick around and invest in good assets, right? Like that's the way you truly build wealth, not chasing short-term cash grabs. >> Fair enough. Before we go, uh can you just go back to your platform? Excellent platform, by the I was just watching you use it and I was just um really impressed. Show us maybe a few onchain indicators that people can use to gauge um you know either direction or just positioning right now. Uh we you you've already shown us a lot of indicators and other macro u variables that uh uh that you follow, but just give us something else here. >> Yeah, I mean there's a few different things you can look at. This is one of the more interesting ones because it's an onchain risk metric that we created and it's based on the peel multiple, the MBRV score, the MBRVZ scorecard, transaction fees, the terminal price, the minor cap to thermal cap ratio, and the market cap to thermal cap ratio. And and you can see that the markets and midterm years typically bottom when the onchain risk goes below 0.1. And right now it's around 261. So over the long period of time, buying Bitcoin at a risk of 26 is likely going to work out for you. But that's not the question, right? The question is is like, you know, for this year, how can we navigate this? I think this could be a metric to to sort of use to to get a better idea of um you know, where this thing might ultimately bottom out. I think I showed some of the indicators earlier that I that I show the uh like the balance price and the realized price. I think I already showed that um but I'll just bring it back up in case people want to take a look at again. Normally, Bitcoin bottoms below the realized price and below the balance price. Hasn't taken either of those out yet. You could even go look at things like the NVRVZ score and see that in midterm years it typically bottoms after it goes below zero and it still is above zero right now. So, there's a lot of there's a lot of indicators you can use. Um, and one that's not really an onchain thing, but it's more of a social thing is the social interest, right? And and when you look at Bitcoin colorcoded by social interest, you can see that this more so resembles that 2019 top where you have more of like a an apathetic top where people just kind of give up and there's no rotation. So in order for the higher risk assets to start doing well, you want to see social interest trending up because in the all seasons of 2017 and 2021, it was basically after a full year of um social interest uh generally trending higher. But yeah, that's what I would I would essentially use for the onchain stuff. I'm I'm mostly using a metric like this which kind of combines um six or seven of six or seven of them to together. >> Okay. Well, that's the um into the cryptoverse platform. I'll put the link down below. Check it out. Where else can we follow you, Ben? >> Yeah, I'm on YouTube. Benjamin Cowan, Twitter, uh into Cryptoverse. Um those are the main places. And I also do have uh my my new website Benjamin Cowan.com. >> Well, Ben's also a YouTuber. I'm always interested to get other YouTubers um perspective on what's trending and what they're interested in covering now. What what what have you been focusing on on your channel recently? >> Yeah, I mean mostly it's this this it's the business cycle. It's making sense of the markets and like why why risk is rotating down the curve rather than up it? Um but but there the thing is is there's always a bull market somewhere and and this year it started off in metals and now it's been in energy. And if you look at the last few business cycles, um, energy actually topped like 6 to 12 months after the stock market topped. And so you could make the claim that, hey, perhaps something like that could happen again. It's not that you can't make money in midterm years. It's just that Bitcoin normally bleeds in midterm years. And if you look here, if you look at at at Bitcoin um against say something like energy, what you'll notice when you look at yearly candles is that every midterm year without fail, every midterm year, Bitcoin bleeds to energy, right? So 2014, Bitcoin dropped 50% against energy. 20 2018 66%, 2022, 77%. So far, it's already down 40%. But this is what Bitcoin always does. It's not about what I want to happen. Um, it would be better for my channel, you know, if if people started coming back to crypto, right? Because then that would that would get, you know, it would raise viewership. People would be in a better mood. But that's just not the phase of the cycle we're in. We're in the phase of the sort of the digestion after the bull market where Bitcoin bleeds to everything else uh in in in other markets. And so, we're just kind of waiting, I think, as for the for the midterm year to go on. >> Despite that, your channel's still growing. You're almost at a million subscribers now. Congratulations. So, everyone, click on Ben Cow's channel right now and subscribe if you haven't already. Let's get him up to as close to a million as possible after this. >> I I I've told people before that the bare market ends when I get to a million. So, that's the indicator I'm I'm really watching. >> And then from there, it's up to 5 million in a year. All right, Ben. U good to see you as always. Thanks so much. We'll put the links below. So, follow Ben there. See you next time, Ben. >> Thanks for having me. And thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And don't forget to use my code lynn when you sign up to couch. That's lin l i n link down below or scan the QR code. New users and traders will get $10 deposited to your account when you trade $10. Link down below or scan the QR code here.
Will Bitcoin Crash To $40k Next? Ben Cowen Warns Bear Market Not Over
Summary
Transcript
every bare market has been a little bit more manageable. I'm in the camp that the current one will probably end up being around a 70% drop. I think that if people kind of understood that crypto has always existed in a early business cycle environment and why there was not really a rotation into altcoins is because we're in a late business cycle. In a late business cycle environment, oil going up can lead to a short-term spike in inflation, right? But usually what it does is it actually then causes markets to to collapse. >> If I were to ask you what would need to happen for Bitcoin to essentially double to 150k before June, we were to put a finger on something, what would that be? >> I think in order >> our next guest has correctly called the top in Bitcoin in October 2025. And now he's back with us to give us his updated outlook for 2026. It's not shaping up to be a great year for Bitcoin and crypto, he says. So, we're going to find out where the bottom is and how Bitcoin will perform into the summer this year. We're also going to be talking about monetary policy, alternative assets in general, and the dollar and the business cycle. Very important topics. Ben Cowan is back with us. He is a founder of Into the Cryptoverse, and we're going to be going into a deep dive into the cryptoverse today. Check out Ben's last interview with me, linked down below, aired January 1st, beginning of the year. This video is sponsored by Koshi. It is a fully regulated platform that lets you trade our real world events from economic data to political outcomes. Sign up and use my code Lin Lin. Link in the description down below or scan the QR code here. New users will get $10 deposited to your account when you trade $10. Traders can put money down to their favorite teams, events, elections, and more in all 50 states, including California and Texas in over 140 countries. Ben, welcome back. And again, I encourage people to check out Ben's last call with me, uh, link down below, which he made on my show, late December, early January. Welcome back, Ben. Good to see you again. >> Yeah, thanks for having me here. Pleasure to to come back as always. >> You were on the show late December 2025. We aired that interview January 1st. I think it was one of the first videos on my channel this year. So, link down below. Check out Ben's views. Um, you were correct last year in calling for the Bitcoin uh bare market of of the fall, which was a spot-on call. Um, I believe you're not as bullish now as you are in prior years. You're still kind of saying that Bitcoin is in a bull uh bare market uh or, you know, midterm medium-term bare market. Uh, correct me if I'm wrong. And you're and you're expecting the 200 day uh 200 week rather 200 week moving average to return sometime in 2026. Um, things could look like the April 2025 low potentially around the low to mid7,000s, which is exactly where we are now. So, my first question is this the bottom? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Um, I think that that Bitcoin will likely go lower as the year goes on. And I want to throw up a few charts to kind of provide why I'm I'm not I mean, I will say this, like I don't think it it makes sense to be as bearish as before Bitcoin had a 50% drop, right? But with that said, um I I think just looking at it objectively, midterm years historically are not great for Bitcoin. So, uh to give you an idea of of some of the things I'm looking at, I I think we could first start off with say the year-to- date ROI of Bitcoin, just kind of keeping it simple in 2026 and then looking at the average of prior midterm years. And we can even overlay one standard deviation off of that average. And like you can see that Bitcoin generally speaking is following the average return of prior midterm years. So this is kind of that the midterm years for Bitcoin historically have always been like a a major window of weakness for whatever reason. Whether you want to blame the four-year cycle, the having liquidity, the election cycle, no one really knows for sure, but to me it still looks like it's tracking the average of prior midterm years. The good news is as measured from the peak the draw down hasn't been as you know quite as bad. So if we look at the current draw down from the peak and we average out say the last three peaks with one standard deviation we're actually not dropping as much but I think there's a reason David that we haven't dropped as much and it's because uh first of all Bitcoin experiences diminishing losses from one cycle to another one bare market to another. every bare market has been a little bit more manageable. Uh so to look at at this screen right here, you can see the first bare market for Bitcoin was about a 94% drop. The second one was about 87. The next one was about 84 and then the next one was about 77. So I'm in the camp that the current one will probably end up being around a 70% drop, maybe plus or minus 4 to 5%. Uh, so if we get down to those levels, then I I probably would I imagine I would sort of flip my views and no longer be bearish on on Bitcoin. But look, I know there's some indicators that that people are pointing to that might suggest the low is in. But I I feel like for every indicator that we can find that might suggest that, it just seems like there's so many others that would suggest otherwise. And I I want to show you a couple more charts. One of them is the ROI of Bitcoin as measured from the low. And I think we probably talked about this chart in the last video that we did. How this cycle, this past cycle lasted 1,062 days. The cycle before that one lasted,59 and the cycle before that one lasted,68. And if you just extend this out to the lows, it would still suggest that we have, you know, some more months ahead of slightly lower highs and slightly lower lows for Bitcoin. So to give you just like a couple of examples of >> charts that I think would make more sense cuz this is more of a time based thing. This chart in terms of a price based thing. Some of the interesting charts that are are some um onchain charts to look at. Historically the price of Bitcoin bottoms whenever the after the Bitcoin of the the Bitcoin percentage of supply and profit and loss after they have crossed you you start looking for a low. You don't historically want to look for a low until after they have crossed. And then the other, you know, one of the other things we can look at is something known as the balance price and the realized price. So if you look at Bitcoin's prior bare markets in 2011 and in 2014, 2018, even in 2020, and in 2022, Bitcoin went below both the realized price and the balance price. And you can see that so far this cycle that has not yet happened. So I I don't really think this time's going to be different. I have a feeling Bitcoin will go will face these macro headwinds going into the summer and perhaps later this year we can turn things around. >> I'd like to spend a few minutes and talk about uh what drives capital flows in and out of Bitcoin. So take a look at my screen here. Um I'll just show you a Bitcoin chart real quick. So this is BTC and as you can see basically since October, Bitcoin has not had anything to do with the NASDAQ which uh prior to I guess now has been um as you can see by the chart uh one of the dominant narratives for why Bitcoin has been moving. It's been trading as a leverage play to tech stocks. Uh not so much this year. Now if you overlay this with the DXY, there's still no strong definitive relationship with the DXY. Although I have noticed that ever since you the Iran war uh broke out uh about a month and month and a half ago uh well just actually 3 weeks ago uh Bitcoin has been uh trading more in line uh with the DXY and to a certain extent earlier in uh 2024 as well uh whereas prior to 2024 uh that narrative never really took shape. So I'm wondering why in the last two years there's been more periods than not. Of course, I'm not going to say it's perfectly correlated with the dollar because it's not. But I'm just saying that there have been more frequently um or more frequent periods in which Bitcoin and the dollar have moved together than in prior years. Was this a result of the uh Bitcoin uh treasury companies uh being a new trend uh or something else here? >> I mean, there's always there's always a narrative that we can find, but I mean, the reality is the dollar is doing the same thing it did in in 2017 and 2018. If you look at what the dollar did, I mean, I don't have the chart in front of me, but if you look at the dollar, I can pull it up. If you look at what the dollar did in 2017, the dollar topped in um I think January, and let me just show you on my screen really quick here so that everyone everyone can see what I'm talking about. Um so, if you look at if you look at the dollar in 2017, and again, I'm pointing this out because, you know, we have the same basically the same administration in place in the United States. Uh yeah, dollar DXY topped January 2017. Uh the DXY found a top January 2025 and and then the dollar was weak and and you can see it remained weak for a while just like it did this cycle. And what happened was the dollar ended up bottoming in February of 2018. Not that dissimilar from what we just saw happen with the dollar in this midterm year. And so what I think is going to happen is I think the dollar is going to probably start trending back up here maybe to around like 105 106 somewhere in in that ballpark. Maybe a little maybe a little higher maybe like 107 or something. But the you know there's periods where markets are correlated and periods where they're not. And like just because Bitcoin usually goes up when the dollar goes down or just because you know vice versa is always true or typically doesn't mean it's always true, right? can have periods where one's going down and the other one's going down or one's going up and the other one's going up. So, I I don't really put a lot of faith into the idea that it it it matters a whole lot. I I think the bigger the bigger thing that's happening right now with Bitcoin as it relates to other risk assets is is you'll see Bitcoin is bleeding against other risk assets. So, like for instance, if you were to look at Bitcoin's valuation against the NASDAQ for example, right? that's been bleeding since July. So, at this point, Bitcoin has now dropped about 55% against the NASDAQ since July. Bitcoin has been dropping against gold as well, right? You can see it's been dropping against gold, it's now down about 60%, but it was down about 70%. I don't think that these short-term bounces by Bitcoin on its gold valuation or Bitcoin on it say its NASDAQ valuation, I don't think they represent a new trend, right? If you look at just to give you an example, I mean, if you look at at Bitcoin's gold valuation, it always rallies in March of the midterm year, right? Here's March of 2022 and here's March of 2018. We typically see rallies by Bitcoin against gold in March of midterm years. So, I don't really think, you know, it's it's easy to want to look at these correlations in the short term and try to figure out what's happening. But I I think that right now we're we're sort of in that phase where everyone thinks that or a lot of people think that the bare market might be over um because of this rally, but we we've seen these rallies before in midterm years and they they didn't actually mean that the bare market was over. It it still had, you know, plenty to go after that. So, I I do think it's relevant to think about that. And one of the reasons, David, why this cycle has felt so different and why there was not really a rotation in the altcoins um is because we're in a late business cycle environment. And I I think that if people kind of understood that crypto has always existed in a early business cycle environment and that's what led to the prior alt seasons as they call it. If people understood more of like this time the reason it feels different is because this time it's a late business cycle environment and in a late business cycle environment risk rolls down the curve rather than up it. Right? So early cycle you you go from like the lowrisk things and people take on more and more risk until they get all the way out in the risk curve and then you get a blow up top. But in a late business cycle environment, the speculative excess that dies off first and that's why altcoins have been bleeding to Bitcoin, Bitcoin's been bleeding to stocks and then stocks have been bleeding to gold. >> Is there a direct relationship between spot Bitcoin ETF flows and prices? It looks like flows have improved in recent weeks, but the price is still hovering sideways or trading sideways. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't, you know, if you look at at I think we track some of the stuff on on the website, but I haven't like I don't see any like if we were to separate this out and just look at at say ETF holdings, you know, ETF holdings right now for Bitcoin aren't that different than where they were back in October, but yet the price is 50% lower. So you have a you you potentially have a scenario here where there's a lot of people that came in and bought the ETFs, but the OGs that have been in Bitcoin for 10 years are are selling to them essentially. Um there's not a lot of new retail participation that is actively following this up. Yes, there are some people buying ETFs, but the problem right now is that when you look at like social interest, it's just been trending down since 2021. This this chart here shows the social interest of of Bitcoin. It topped in May of 2021 and it's been trending down ever since. So, while yes, there's people that are buying the ETFs, there's not really a lot of new people coming into the space like we've seen in prior in prior market cycles. >> Well, what if inflation fears continue to rise? So let's suppose oil stays high and uh we have a situation where the CPI uh headline and core start to rise. Um what impact does that have on risk assets including Bitcoin? >> Yeah, I mean it's not good basically and basically 2026 is just a weak year for crypto. I think going into next year 2027 it'll probably look a little bit better. Um but I think this year it's just easy to recognize there's macro headwinds. A lot of the rate cuts that were getting priced in previously have now been pushed off to like the end of 2027. Um, and if you look, this is a a business cycle chart that I I de I developed and it's and this anyone can recreate it. It's just the S&P 500 divided by the unemployment rate squared multiplied by US interest rates multiplied by the US inflation rate year-over-year and then normalized by M2. And when you look at this chart, like you can pretty clearly see the business cycles, right? Like you can see the business cycles in the late '60s and the '7s and and here the one is in the '9s and then here's the dot and here's the financial crisis. And the only other time in history where we got a glimpse the only other time in history where crypto got a glimpse of a late business cycle environment was in fact in 2019. But what happened back then we saw Bitcoin top out in June 2 months before quantitative tightening ended just like this cycle. It topped in October 2 months before quantitative tightening ended in December. So the same thing's playing out. It's just that we got a glimpse of what would happen back in 2019 and higher risk assets did not start outperforming again until after the business cycle was over. The problem is that historically for the business cycle to be over, you need some type of of crisis that then allows for looser monetary policy and looser or like looser liquidity conditions. Right? If we have this like liquidity risk metric that shows you that this has been a very tight liquidity regime for a while and in order for those lowrisk assets to start underperforming high risk, you need something that brings this liquidity metric all the way back down to the lows because until that time happens, you're you're still likely going to see alts bleed to Bitcoin, Bitcoin bleed to stocks, and then stocks bleed to gold. and and we actually just had a pretty major event happen uh since the last time that you and I spoke about about this. I think we I don't know if I if I showed this chart the last time we spoke, but um it's a chart that I think everyone should be looking at. And it's the stock market's valuation against gold. And what you'll see what you'll see is that it it basically is breaking down from the same valuations that it broke down at in 1973 and in 2008. And historically this is not a good thing for risk assets, right? I mean like recently it's bounced back up to back test where it broke down from. But historically what happens after the stock market breaks down against gold is that the stock market then gets you know its own sizable correction which is I believe kind of what we're in right now right you can see in 1973 when it broke down we saw stocks get a correction and of course we know what happened in08 um it's a long process right it doesn't play it doesn't play out overnight but you can see that in order for things to change um something needs to happen and and one of those things that could be happening Right now, what you mentioned is something like the price of oil because in in all of the prior business cycles, so you look at this chart, these business cycles, if you were to overlay the price of of crude oil on the chart, what you'll notice is that it's in a late business cycle environment when the price of oil spikes that then leads to the beginning of the end of the business cycle. Right? And the reason is because the Fed has a dual mandate. They maximum employment and price stability. When rates when when the unemployment rate is going up, they lower rates. When inflation is going up, they raise rates. What do they do if both are going up together? And as I've said before, I've I've made this chess analogy many times. Um, you know, if if you want to checkmate your opponent, you have to create two weaknesses. If you create one weakness, they can defend that. So, the Fed can always defend against one weakness. It's having to deal with two weaknesses at the same time that ultimately leads to checkmate that leads to the crisis and that leads to the resetting of the business cycle where the higher risk assets, you know, drop a lot and then and then we kind of go into a fresh new market cycle where all the froth from the prior cycle basically just went to zero and then we start a new and the economy um while it while the contractions are difficult, it actually helps reset the economy and keep it healthier for the long term. Just on that note, uh would it be fair to say that if we have both weaknesses, weakening labor market as well as higher inflation, the Fed should defend against inflation because higher inflation will cause a recession anyway. And so in that situation, they would have to just keep rates high. >> The issue right now is is how weak the labor market is. So like if you look at this chart, uh this is total non-farm payroll. I think the I think the labor market's a lot weaker than people think it is. If you look at the year-over-year change in this in this um establishment survey, it's very close to going negative. So like the excess from 2022, 2023, and 2024 is completely gone. And but because of that, because there was all this excess, I feel like it gives people this like false sense of security that there will always be this excess, you know, but you can see that contractions have historically occurred when this metric goes negative and it's it's very close to going negative. Now, if you look at layoffs, they're relatively low, right? You can look at at layoffs uh and discharges in the United States, they're relatively low. You can look at initial claims in the United States and see that they're trending still around 200,000. And I've said before, until they're at 300,000, you can't really call for a recession. But it's the issue is that the stock market going down leads to layoffs. It's not initially anyways. It's not layoffs starting that then leads to the stock market going down. The stock market kind of sets it in motion. and and on average by the time recessions are here once the MBER announces their recession on average the market has already bottomed 15 days earlier at least looking like looking at the average of the last like seven or eight um business cycles. So the weakness though, David, is in is in everything else. Not it's not the hiring. It's not the layoffs, it's the hires, right? If you look at hires, that's been trending down for a long time. You could look at at job openings, that's been trending down for a long time. The weakness is already there, but the reason why we haven't kind of entered that that last phase of the business cycle is because the unemployment rate has only been steadily going up. It hasn't entered into that nonlinear phase, right, where it goes up and there's no way to control it. This so far, this steady rise in the unemployment rate. That's what they wanted, right? That's what the Fed wanted. They wanted to reduce pressures on wage inflation, they wanted to loosen up the labor market a little bit, but now it's loose. And now theoretically if if their mandate was only the labor market, they absolutely would be cutting right now, you know, because we just had, you know, we're about to go negative in year-over-year job growth. The problem is is what you said and that and that's that they have this dual mandate and look, if inflation if inflation starts coming back, that's going to make them not cut as aggressively as they should. And so what what I think could happen in a late business cycle environment, oil going up can lead to a short-term spike in inflation, right? But usually what it does is it actually then causes markets to to collapse, right? And and markets to drop, which then is a more disinflationary impact. If we are to have a secondary wave of inflation like we had in 2022, it's not because the price of oil goes up. It's because they turn the money printers back on in response to trying to save asset prices, right? So, oil could be the reason that then eventually leads to inflation because of the response uh by people to sort of solve if we have this crisis, but oil going up in and of itself in a late business cycle environment. Historically, while short-term inflationary eventually starts to lead to more disinflationary times. >> Okay, I just want to point something else out. Uh this is an article published in uh in February. Uh but it says Bitcoin near pre-election floor as ETF flow stalls. City says this is from CoinDesk. Crypto markets are approaching important inflection points weeks after declines. Uh crypto markets have exhibited the volatility similar to precious metals but without the upside. So um regulation remains a key potential catalyst. Uh we haven't talked about regulation yet which is why I brought this up. uh the fact that the administration is has been supportive of Bitcoin and then Bitcoin is currently at around the same time as the pre-election price uh in 20 late 2024. Does that signal a potential floor? Um from that perspective uh just maybe just comment what we're seeing here. >> No, I don't think any of that stuff matters honestly. I mean long long term long-term is it bullish for the asset class? Absolutely. But the reality is is Bitcoin has mostly just gone down, you know, despite all this stuff. And if you think about it, >> basically this more pro- crypto stance was more so just a way for a lot of influencers to launch memecoins without fear of repercussions. And so I feel like >> I feel like it just further led to the malinvestment of capital in the crypto markets and made people focus on things they shouldn't be focusing on. And because of that, Bitcoin is punishing the market uh and making sure that people get back in line. And that's what it usually does in midterm years. And usually by the end of midterm years, people are back in line and then we start another bull market. But I don't I don't think any of that regulatory stuff really matters for for the for the short-term price action. >> What What is the next memecoin phase, so to speak? In other words, the next altcoin cycle, if that were to appear anytime soon, uh what would that be, I guess, centered on? Uh would it would it would it still be memecoins or do you see another you know another trend emerging? Would it be AI coins? I >> I think I I think to truly have another alt season um and I've been anti- all season for like the last four or five years. I mean I've been on your channel a lot during that time period. I've always said the same thing. I think in order to really have a phase like that again, it needs to be after the current business cycle is over. So basically a lot of the froth should die out this year and then liquidity conditions hopefully can be a lot looser in a future market cycle. But but the problem for altcoins this past market cycle is we were in restrictive territory the entire time. Um you know the Fed funds rate was essentially above the 2-year yield for the entire cycle. And I'm using the 2-year yield as an approximation of the neutral rate. We were also in quantitative tightening until the very end of the bull market. and and so we didn't have the right macro conditions for higher risk assets to really do well next cycle. Could that change? Yeah, it could. Uh in order for that to really change though, I think we need to see the markets kind of unwind further this year. And if they can unwind further this year, then perhaps next cycle we'll go back to what what people remember. But again, there's still a long way between now and then. And if you look at at what's happening with with energy prices recently now we're not even projected to have rate cuts until I think you know mid to late 2027. So it's hard to know. I mean you have these fourear cycles existing within larger business cycles. Um, and right now we're just in the in the postappathetic top decline sort of this like this distrib or this um digestion phase in the crypto markets where it's digesting the bull market that it had for the last 3 years and you know the people that were waiting for an alt season it never happened. And so what it what it shows, David, is that in crypto, the only the only asset that I think is worth holding longterm is Bitcoin because all the other stuff just bleeds to Bitcoin. And the only other time where the other stuff durably outperforms Bitcoin is after a euphoric rally by Bitcoin where retail interest starts to come back. But if you're looking at a chart and you're and you're watching social interests trend down every single year for four years, it doesn't make sense to call for alt season because there's just no one around to buy these coins. Like no one cares anymore. Um and so that's kind of what I I I wanted to communicate to people is look, this is more of a late business cycle environment and this is why it didn't play out like a lot of people were hoping it would. >> Yeah. And by the way, this is just from uh Koshi as a prediction market. When will Bitcoin hit 150K? traders are not optimistic it's going to happen this year. There's basically no chance. So the sentiment right now, this is just to highlight sentiment is not euphoric at all. It's quite the opposite of that. Which by the way may be a contra indicator in itself. I don't know. I'm just playing devil's advocate right now. I've just noticed in the past when no one thinks Bitcoin's going up, that's usually the bottom. But um you've got better indicators to actually track sentiment. What do you use to gauge sentiment by the way? >> Yeah, I think it's it's all about like these mental gymnastics, right? Like I remember back in in Q4 and I think we saw each other in Las Vegas if I'm not mistaken before Q4 and we kind of talked about how Bitcoin would likely top when it always does right in the fourth quarter the post having year and when the fourth quarter came there were a ton of people that were calling for the 5-year cycle and the super cycle and all these things and and they use different arguments right they use things like the money supply lagging M2 they use liquidity conditions Um they used the fact that we hadn't had an alt season yet which is why the market cycle would go on. They used all sorts of things but and one of the main things they used was oh because everyone's predicting the 4ear cycle top it won't happen but then it happened anyways you know and I think there's this reality of like people that are bullish like to assume that everyone is bearish. Like just because the markets say that Bitcoin is unlikely to hit 150k doesn't mean that there's not a lot of people out there that are bullish. Believe me, David, I everyone would know because I post bearish videos every single day and I get caught out by like 20 different influencers anytime I do it. So, it's not true that everyone is bearish. I mean, there's probably a lot of people that are bullish, but they don't think it's going to go to 150K this year, right? They might say, "All right, well, maybe it'll do it by 2027 or 2028." But there's a lot of people that I see online that actually think 60K is the floor. I'm not saying it's impossible for it to be the floor. What I'm saying is that in midterm years, we're going to test that over and over and over again. And because we're only in March, I I think that there's still plenty of time for the rest of this year where we're going to keep testing that 60K level and eventually I think it very well, you know, could break and we could go down into the 40 to 50k range. Um, so and then in January, right, in January, the last time I came on your channel, we were in a counter trend rally, right? We were in a counter trend rally. Bitcoin had already traded up from the low of 81 and I think it was approaching 90. It went all the way up to 90 97 98K. And back then the narrative that I saw on posted in response to my my my videos and the views I was expressing the response was >> well if everyone's expecting the midterm year to be bad it won't be right. And then what happened is Bitcoin topped when it always topped. And the reality is Bitcoin found a low in February. And in every midterm year, Bitcoin has always found a low in February and then it rallied into March. It then formed a lower high and then it went down into the summer. And this happened every single every single cycle. Um, so, you know, I think it's easy to pretend like it's easy for the bears to pretend like everyone's bullish or for the bulls to pretend everyone's bearish. I think it's actually kind of mixed right now. You know, I've seen some polls out there where people will kind of pull people and it's not as lopsided as a lot of people are are sort of making it out to be. I think there's I think there's a lot of people that are convinced it's a bare market, but I also think there's a lot of people holding out um that because alt season didn't happen, we're still going to get that final rotation. And I I just don't think it's going to happen this year. Well, just on mental gymnastics, if I were to ask you what would need to happen for Bitcoin to essentially double to 150K before June, which is in 2 and 1/2 months, um, we were to put a finger on something, what would that be? >> I mean, I don't think it's going to. Um, no, we're not saying it's going to, but like what would need to change? Would the Iran war need to just end tomorrow? uh everything revert back to normal and then um and then I guess and I guess capital flows back into risk assets with the Fed have to ease tremendously um what I mean here. >> I mean okay if the Fed were to print $6 trillion like they did in in 2020 2021 then perhaps that would that would create that environment. The problem is that the Fed the the you know they're not going to do that. the only way they're going to start printing is if there's a crisis. But if you have a crisis, that means the price of Bitcoin goes down, not up in the short term. So, it's almost like the chicken and the egg, right? Like people want the money printing, but in order to have it, you need to have a crisis. And in order to have a crisis, risk assets really need to start start going down. So, I'm not saying Bitcoin can't trend higher at all. In fact, one of the things you often see in uh in bare markets and this is is this is what is is the most difficult part of bare markets. Let me share my screen again. Um >> look at this David. So in bare markets, Bitcoin often spends more time trending up than down. Okay? So like look at November to January. It was generally trending up just like it's been generally trending up for a month and a half now. It's just that when it trends up, it'll sort of bring people into this false sense of security to make them think it's only going to start trending up or continue to trend up and then it just breaks down very quickly without giving people really a lot of time to react, you know, and and so look at the difference in the structure between the bull market and the bare market. All right? So, in the bull market, Bitcoin would generally trend down. You see that? it would generally trend down and then it would just break up very quickly in a very short period of time. Um, but then when we had the market cycle top in October, everything changed. Then Bitcoin trends up and then breaks down. Trends up and then breaks down. So, it's the opposite of what we saw in the bull market where in the bull market it would trend down and then break higher. So, there's been this this this change in market structure. And I'm not saying the market structure won't break. It it will eventually. I just I just think that Q1 of the midterm year is is far too early to call for that to break. >> Fair enough. Where did retail go? By the way, you mentioned several times retail left crypto. What happened? Where did they go? >> I mean, speculative excess just left because prices went down. You could argue they went to AI. I mean, there's a there's a good chance that a lot of the people that left didn't really go to anything else. They just went back to their normal lives, you know, like maybe they just got tired of of chasing, you know, these dreams that were promised to them. Um, they were tired of taking their paycheck and putting it on meme coins and getting robbed. And they eventually just said, you know what, enough's enough. I don't want to I don't want to live this way. I want to provide, you know, for my family in a more um uh a more predictable manner and not rely on like these cash grabs by by a lot of scam coins. And so maybe they just left. I mean, I'm not I mean, some I'm sure went to AI, some I'm sure went to other markets, >> but but there's a lot of people that I know that were interested in crypto in 2021 and now they don't care a thing about it at all. And it's not like they're going and trading, you know, other markets. Um they just they just went other other places. So AI could be an example, prediction markets could be an example. Um there's all sorts of places that that people might have gone. But I think one of the one of the biggest truths is that people just got tired of chasing a dream that was somewhat unrealistic in the short term, but really the dream still exists if they're willing to kind of stick around and invest in good assets, right? Like that's the way you truly build wealth, not chasing short-term cash grabs. >> Fair enough. Before we go, uh can you just go back to your platform? Excellent platform, by the I was just watching you use it and I was just um really impressed. Show us maybe a few onchain indicators that people can use to gauge um you know either direction or just positioning right now. Uh we you you've already shown us a lot of indicators and other macro u variables that uh uh that you follow, but just give us something else here. >> Yeah, I mean there's a few different things you can look at. This is one of the more interesting ones because it's an onchain risk metric that we created and it's based on the peel multiple, the MBRV score, the MBRVZ scorecard, transaction fees, the terminal price, the minor cap to thermal cap ratio, and the market cap to thermal cap ratio. And and you can see that the markets and midterm years typically bottom when the onchain risk goes below 0.1. And right now it's around 261. So over the long period of time, buying Bitcoin at a risk of 26 is likely going to work out for you. But that's not the question, right? The question is is like, you know, for this year, how can we navigate this? I think this could be a metric to to sort of use to to get a better idea of um you know, where this thing might ultimately bottom out. I think I showed some of the indicators earlier that I that I show the uh like the balance price and the realized price. I think I already showed that um but I'll just bring it back up in case people want to take a look at again. Normally, Bitcoin bottoms below the realized price and below the balance price. Hasn't taken either of those out yet. You could even go look at things like the NVRVZ score and see that in midterm years it typically bottoms after it goes below zero and it still is above zero right now. So, there's a lot of there's a lot of indicators you can use. Um, and one that's not really an onchain thing, but it's more of a social thing is the social interest, right? And and when you look at Bitcoin colorcoded by social interest, you can see that this more so resembles that 2019 top where you have more of like a an apathetic top where people just kind of give up and there's no rotation. So in order for the higher risk assets to start doing well, you want to see social interest trending up because in the all seasons of 2017 and 2021, it was basically after a full year of um social interest uh generally trending higher. But yeah, that's what I would I would essentially use for the onchain stuff. I'm I'm mostly using a metric like this which kind of combines um six or seven of six or seven of them to together. >> Okay. Well, that's the um into the cryptoverse platform. I'll put the link down below. Check it out. Where else can we follow you, Ben? >> Yeah, I'm on YouTube. Benjamin Cowan, Twitter, uh into Cryptoverse. Um those are the main places. And I also do have uh my my new website Benjamin Cowan.com. >> Well, Ben's also a YouTuber. I'm always interested to get other YouTubers um perspective on what's trending and what they're interested in covering now. What what what have you been focusing on on your channel recently? >> Yeah, I mean mostly it's this this it's the business cycle. It's making sense of the markets and like why why risk is rotating down the curve rather than up it? Um but but there the thing is is there's always a bull market somewhere and and this year it started off in metals and now it's been in energy. And if you look at the last few business cycles, um, energy actually topped like 6 to 12 months after the stock market topped. And so you could make the claim that, hey, perhaps something like that could happen again. It's not that you can't make money in midterm years. It's just that Bitcoin normally bleeds in midterm years. And if you look here, if you look at at at Bitcoin um against say something like energy, what you'll notice when you look at yearly candles is that every midterm year without fail, every midterm year, Bitcoin bleeds to energy, right? So 2014, Bitcoin dropped 50% against energy. 20 2018 66%, 2022, 77%. So far, it's already down 40%. But this is what Bitcoin always does. It's not about what I want to happen. Um, it would be better for my channel, you know, if if people started coming back to crypto, right? Because then that would that would get, you know, it would raise viewership. People would be in a better mood. But that's just not the phase of the cycle we're in. We're in the phase of the sort of the digestion after the bull market where Bitcoin bleeds to everything else uh in in in other markets. And so, we're just kind of waiting, I think, as for the for the midterm year to go on. >> Despite that, your channel's still growing. You're almost at a million subscribers now. Congratulations. So, everyone, click on Ben Cow's channel right now and subscribe if you haven't already. Let's get him up to as close to a million as possible after this. >> I I I've told people before that the bare market ends when I get to a million. So, that's the indicator I'm I'm really watching. >> And then from there, it's up to 5 million in a year. All right, Ben. U good to see you as always. Thanks so much. We'll put the links below. So, follow Ben there. See you next time, Ben. >> Thanks for having me. And thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And don't forget to use my code lynn when you sign up to couch. That's lin l i n link down below or scan the QR code. New users and traders will get $10 deposited to your account when you trade $10. Link down below or scan the QR code here.