Transcription
Like if you look at the 2018 bare market compared to the 2026 bare market, they're actually really similar. Look at the similarities. Really eerily similar. And I'll actually talk about where I think they're going to deviate. History is repeating, says data scientist Ben Cowan, who is noticing some eerie similarities between 2026 and 2018. A final crash is coming. So you're saying that this year playing out very similar to 2018 and obviously after a big dip in the beginning of 2018 and you know ranging near the lows we saw that one final capitulation if true if there's one more capitulation left. What is your price target? Ben Cowan gives his best prediction for where he thinks Bitcoin goes next based on data. You have three months. Threemonth warning. Altcoin daily audience. It is. Now that you show me all this, it is amazing how closely it has like followed 2018. Smash the like button. Share this video with one friend who also follows Bitcoin. And let's jump into this. Macroeconomic analyst and data scientist, also sometimes known as a dubious speculator, Benjamin Cowen of Into the Cryptoverse. He has just started a new crypto and cycles investing conference. It's in Miami November 21st. 10% off tickets with my link below. More on that later. But then I'm really happy you're coming on today. Before we talk about price, man, how are you? How are you getting through these hard times in crypto?
>> The World Cup. I think that's how I'm getting through it. Um I mean the World Cup is fun. That's one of the highlights of midterm years, right? is every midterm year we have the World Cup. So that's what I'm mostly watching. And you know with crypto a lot of times we get a sort of a big drop going into the summer like late June, early July and and then the the markets kind of go up slightly for usually part of July and August. So you get like a little reprieve from that from that bare market. But yeah, I think just trying to distract myself with other things. Real life, right? Real life. We have five kids, too. We had our fifth kid this year. That's certainly um taken a lot of my attention as well. So, I guess life is the way I'm getting is getting through it.
>> That's awesome. That's awesome. The bare market didn't stop you from meeting a nice lovely woman and starting a family.
>> Exactly.
>> But real quick, uh World Cup prediction.
>> So, like like crypto, there's what I want to happen and what I think will happen, right? And what I want to happen is I want the US to win the whole thing, right? Like without a doubt, that's who I that's who I want to see. Um, now, is that likely? Probably not. But I'm going to be a I'm going to be a blind permable rooting for the USA, even though it might not seem like the most likely outcome. Who do I think will win it? Um, I mean, Argentina's got to be up there. I think France has has pretty good odds. I mean, just the the main juggernauts, right? You have France, Spain, Argentina, and England. Um, Germany get going out was a big surprise and that was a pretty big surprise early. Brazil's out. You know, I'd like to see Norway do well. I I think Holland is uh is really fun to watch play. Like to see them do well. And also, by the way, the best chess player in the world is also from Norway, Magnus Carlson. So, that'd be kind of cool to see them do well. So I I don't really, you know, it's hard to know because even Argentina only beat CBO Verde three to two, you know. So this is one of those things where no one really knows. I'm I'm cheering for the USA and and if it's not them, it'll probably be one of those big four.
>> Ben, let's jump in to Bitcoin and, you know, your thoughts on, you know, what comes next. I guess to start things off, what surprised you the most in 2026 so far? I think I'm I I think I'm actually really surprised by just how closely it's matched 2018. Like I keep thinking, all right, like it'll deviate at some point and throw us a curveball that that is is tough to, you know, sort of that's tough to foresee, but then so far it keeps playing out in the same way. And uh I could I could share my screen quickly and kind of show you guys what I'm talking about. Like if you look at at the 2018 bare market compared to the 2026 bare market, they're actually really similar. And I'll actually talk about where I think they're going to deviate. Um, now they may not look similar and the reason.
>> So you're saying that this year playing out very similar to 2018 and obviously, you know, after a big dip in the beginning of 2018 and, you know, ranging near the lows, we saw that one final capitulation, you know, something a lot of people weren't weren't calling for. And is that kind of
>> right? Yeah. So the one the people the reason why people don't think it's like 2018 is because in 2018 Bitcoin had a euphoric rally and we had a rotation into higher risk assets altcoins right and we had the famous all season in late 2017 early 2018 that was around the time that I know you started your channel and that was when I remember watching you for the very first time um which was still like a year and a half before I started mine but if you look at the chart here like you you see like if I were to draw a line at like 120 26 or 12,600. This this little move right here by Bitcoin is the reason why it feels so much different than than 2018 because if Bitcoin had just topped out at a 12,600 back then, look at the similarities. Look at So you had you had a major low in February and then you had a higher low. Sorry, let me fix that line. So you had your first low in February and I'll draw that line out. So first low here February 2018 and then we printed a higher low in late March and early April and in 2026 it's the same thing, right? We had a low in February and then we printed a higher low in late March, early April. From there, Bitcoin rallied up to its 200 day moving average. I'm just switching this over to the daily so I can pull up the daily moving average. You can see that from that higher low, Bitcoin rallied up to that 200 day moving average in May of 2018. And that's exactly where it rallied up to in May of 2026, right? And uh that 200 day moving average. And then where it gets really eerily similar is that the low that was formed in June, you see how we swept the February low in 2018, we swept it in June.
>> Mhm. The low that formed was at 5700 when we swept it. And we swept it in late June, early July time frame. And the low that we just formed in late June, early July of 2026 was 57,000. So like I keep thinking there's no way it's going to keep tracking. And I keep it's one of those things where I like I'll make these videos and be like, "All right, if it's going to play out like this, it's going to put a low in February, higher low in March or April, lower high in May, and then a lower low in June." But it's like I don't necessarily believe everything that I say, right? Like I say that this is what's going to happen, but then it keeps playing out that way. So I would say that's been the biggest surprise is just how similar it is. And one quick way to visualize just how similar it is is if you look at the year-to- date ROI of Bitcoin in 2026 and compare it to 2018, you can see how the lows line up, right? And even the high the the high in May, how it lines up. And even the low that we just had, the daily close literally lines up with the low we had in um you know, in 2018. And you can see that after that low, we had a rally for a while, for like a week and a half, and then we had a pullback and then we had a larger rally that then took Bitcoin back up to the 200 day moving average. Now, what's interesting is when Bitcoin went up to the 200 day moving average in July, it gave all those gains back in August, right? And and also in 2022, we had a rally into July and early August, and then all those gains were given back in August and and and September. So, that's where I think we are right now. We're like right after this massive capitulation into June, July. Usually there's some type of counter move in in July, but it's it's relatively short-lived and then it it then leads to the final low that normally happens in the fourth quarter of the year. That doesn't mean you have to wait until Q4 to start buying Bitcoin. Normally, if you just DCA Bitcoin, that's what I do in the second half of midterm years, it works out pretty well as long as you can stomach short-term downside. But I think from an academic perspective, like I I look at this and I'm like, you know what, it's played out like the exact same way it did back then, just with less volatility. Perhaps it it might just continue. And where I think it will deviate, and I could be wrong about this.
>> You're already like, you're so used to giving your thoughts on what happens this year, you're already answering all the follow-up questions.
>> I know, I know, I know. I can read your mind, right? You're a twin. I'm a twin. you know, we really
>> um what normally happens is or what happened in 2018 is that the final capitulation didn't happen until like November, right? I think this time this pattern will deviate because I think the final low will probably occur sooner than it did in 2018. And the reason I say that is because in 2018 the low was December, but the high was also December. This time the high was October. And also last cycle the high was November and the low was November. So as as silly and as stupid as it is, like what if what if these simple timebased indicators, that's like the best we have, you know, and and so I could see it deviating and putting in a low, you know, earlier, maybe like late September, early October is about when about like if you look at weekly candles, like how long the bare markets take. Um, what the last one, this one over here from the last cycle took what was that like 54 weeks and the one in 2017 took 52 weeks. So, give or take. Like, I'm not going to measure it exactly, but I mean around a year and we're currently at 38 or so. So, I mean like 52 weeks would put you in in October. Um, you know, if it's 51 it could be like late September. If it's 54 or 55, it could be late October, early November, but I think it's around that time.
>> 3month warning, altcoin daily audience. It is now that you show me all this, it is amazing how closely it has like followed 2018. And you know, I guess you know, I guess what I'm wondering next is if true, if there's one more capitulation left, what is your price target? and what percent chance do you think the bottom is already in?
>> It's a good question. So, what I like to look at, I like to look at a lot of the onchain indicators to sort of suggest like like if the low is actually in and there's a few like that are I I think are really good and um and I know a lot of people kind of criticize some of this stuff, but I'm just going with like what the market has done previously, right? If you look at the MVRV Zcore for instance,
>> and by the way guys, you can get access to any of these indicators linked below. Right? So if you look at like the market value to realized value zcore, the MVRBZ scorecore, it's the market cap minus the real realized cap divided by the standard deviation of the market cap. If you if you plot that out historically, the lows occur after the MVZ score resets below zero, right? And it's not quite below zero yet. Again, I'm not suggesting people need to wait for it to go below zero to buy, but that's historically what has kind of reset the market is the MVRV score going back below zero. Um, another one that actually already triggered, which is why now I'm more open-minded to a market cycle bottom being in um than and like in the first half of the year I think it made sense to ignore it. The supply of Bitcoin and profit and loss has now crossed, right? And normally you wait for them to cross before you start calling market cycle bottoms. the only one of the ones that you could look at to I guess try to look at at where a low could theoretically be and there's sort of like the um or sorry this is more of a time based one this is just looking at the ROI to the low and and you can kind of see like where we are with respect to the last two cycles but if you look at the um the realized price so if you look at the realized price this green line historically Bitcoin goes below that in sometime in the midterm So in 2014, we first went below it in October. In 2018, we didn't go below it until November. So in in last cycle, we went below it in June. So other people that'll say, well, it hasn't happened yet, therefore this time is different. But in two of the past three midterm years, we didn't even go below it until October or November. So I think you have to look at that as a potential outcome here. And the realized price is at around 53K. So if you go below 53K, let's say you go into like the high 40s or low 50s, then you've at least checked that box. The worst case scenario, right?
>> The base case is high 40s, low 50s.
>> I think that's like a I think that's a like a reasonable, hey, I don't want to get too doomerish, you know? And I would say worstc case scenario for me like so I would say the floor for the year which is a dangerous thing to say because any anytime you say the ceiling or the floor the market loves to just like prove those people wrong. But the level at which I could no longer with a clear conscience like have a bearish you know strand of hair would be if you were to go below the balance price. And the reason I say that is because all prior market cycle bottoms for Bitcoin occurred below the balance price. So if you look at like the bare market we had in 2011, uh we went below the balance price. If you look at the one we had in 2013, 2014 going into early 2015, we went below the bounce price. Same thing in 2018, and even in 2020, you can see how we wicked just below the balance price before the market cycle bottom was in. And even in 2022, we went below the balance price on on one of those intraday wicks. Like you can see, we went right down to it. It doesn't look like we went below it here, but we did because the balance price was 15.65K and the wick, as I'm sure you remember, it took us down to like 15.4K. 15.4 15.5. So, we did take it out. Now, this time we might not take it out because if you were to take the price of Bitcoin divided by that metric, you can see that each cycle we've kind of recently we've gone not as far below it. So maybe this is the cycle where we don't even tag it. But just to give people an idea of where it is. It's around 40K, right? And it's like a little bit less than 40K. That would be kind of the the spot where, you know, there's no reason to be bearish. That would be the point of like if if it happens tomorrow, I'm not going to sit here and and hammer down that it has to be October or November or September, right? I would just be like, "No, forget about all that stuff. It's time to pivot and and and just put on your, you know, your bull your bullish bias and forget about everything else." And what's really interesting is if you compare, you know, 2018 to 2026 and let's say 2018 6K was the low. Um, ultimately the actual low occurred between $3 and $4,000, right? That's where it actually occurred. I've also made a lot of comparisons to 2019. As I've come on your channel many times, we've talked about the comparison between this bull market to 2019. And some of the comparisons include the fact that in 2019, we had three rate cuts. In 2025, we had three rate cuts. In 2019, the Fed ended quantitative tightening in August. Bitcoin topped two months before that in in June. In 2025, the Fed ended QT in December. Bitcoin topped two months for in October. In 2019, there was no rotation into altcoins and Bitcoin dominance went up for that entire bull market. Same thing that we just saw, right? No rotation of altcoins and Bitcoin dominance was going up. So, if you want to make the 2019 comparison, well, we were also holding support at around 6K and then coincidentally the low ended up being between three and four. So, I I would say that like that would be worstc case scenario for the year. At which point, like if you had me back on the channel and we're at those prices, I couldn't I couldn't sit here anymore and be like, "Well, look at this indicator or that indicator and be like, "No, like everything's fully reset." If we're going to go lower than that, then we're basically breaking every indicator we have at that point. Um,
>> and you said less than 40K.
>> That would be what would fully reset every onchain indicator. like every onchain indicator like so we I actually take a lot of the onchain indicators and I have this like onchain risk metric for them and it includes a lot of the main ones that you know a lot of people I'm sure have have heard of like I mean it includes the MVRBZ score uh the PE multiple transaction fees price minor cap to thermal cap ratio market cap to thermal cap ratio you can even add in here uh the R huddle ratio and the supply and profit and loss that we talked about as well and you can see that normally the lows um near the end of midterm years occur after this metric goes below about 0.1 risk and we're getting there like we're you can see that if we were to have one more counter trend rally into say like late July early August and if we were to get one final drop you could argue that that would basically fully reset everything. Um, so again, I I don't know exactly. I I do think that, you know, anything below 60K long-term is probably going to be looked at as a as a good deal. But in the short term, it's hard to know, right? Like, I mean, if you bought Bitcoin at 20K in 2022, you probably felt really dumb later that year when it was trading for 15K. I know I know now it doesn't really feel like a big deal, but back then it was for a lot of people. Same thing in 2018. I mean, I'm sure you were probably buying Bitcoin in 2018 at 6K and I was I was also buying altcoins back then, believe it or not. Um, and then when the market went down here, I felt like a you know. Um, but then, you know, the market, you can see that it didn't really matter. So, this is one of those things where like being right and making money are two very different things. Okay? There there's probably going to be some people that choose not to buy Bitcoin at all until they think the bottom is in, but they'll just make the same mistake that everyone's made in the past, and that's they they're right about the bare market, but then they never actually flip bullish, you know? So, okay, congratulations on being right, but did you actually make any money? And I think that's the biggest lesson that a lot of people um and I including myself have learned throughout these last several cycles. And so that's the only thing I would say is you know what you don't have to time the bottom exactly. You can just DCA on some cadence that you think makes sense for you and then go live your life, go watch the World Cup, go do something else and then come back later and hopefully the four-year cycle remains intact because I think the biggest critics of the four-year cycle will likely turn into the biggest cheerleaders of it in in just a few months. And did did we get uh your number on percent chance the bottom might be in?
>> It's a good question. I I think it's it's probably higher than I give it credit for. Um I I would say that the the percent I want to say slightly less than 50 just cuz I think some of there are some more onchain indicators and we normally get that final drop at the end of the year. So I'd probably say like 40 to 45% chance uh that it's in. And and if I had to make the case for it, like if you if you force me to say, Ben, well, be play devil's advocate here and try to poke a hole in it, you know, I would basically say, well, if this truly is like 2019, we did find support at around 6K before getting this big rally up. So, is there a chance that what we're seeing right now? Like, is there a chance that like this little box here is the same thing as this one where we get a big rally out of it, but instead of having a massive recession right away that's induced by a pandemic, what if the recession's delayed until say like 2028 or, you know, or just if it's it's if it's far off in the future. So, I guess that would be the way in which this view could be wrong. But the reason why I don't put too much weight on that view is I like to believe that that narrative follows price, not the other way around. And in both cases, whether you look at 2018 or 2019, we still ended up getting the final drop below that $6,000 level, which is why I think eventually we likely will have that final drop below the 60K level. And I think what's happening is we're essentially getting squeezed between, you know, the the bare market resistance band, just the 21week EMA, the 20week SMA, and that 200WE moving average. So you could see it do something like this where it comes back up, maybe gets a brief correction in in sort of the second week of July. That's what happened in 2018. Perhaps you go back up to the bare market resistance band by like late July, early August. you come back down, they get squeezed together, you get your final drop, everyone freaks out, you know, and and then we set the market cycle bottom and then we go back up. And by the way, if you need a narrative, one of the reasons historically why Bitcoin goes back down near the end of midterm years is it it usually corresponds with a correction in the stock market at the end of midterm years. So, just I know this is not the topic of the video, but it is it's all related. If you look at 2018, there is a correction in stocks at the beginning of the year and then a correction in stocks at the end of the year. 2022, the same thing. You had your initial correction here and then you had another correction at the end of the year. And even in 2014, you had a small correction at the beginning of the year and then a larger drop near the end of the year in terms of in terms of percent. So, usually it's a 10 to 20% drop in stocks that starts in either August or September of midterm years and then that within that within that drop that's where Bitcoin puts in the market cycle bottom. I don't think you know sailor selling or anything that I mean that stuff just simply it's a narrative that's going to scare people. I think if you just look at at what the charts say that look, there's a chance we get one more drop on the back of a drop in stocks and then that will allow Bitcoin to form the market cycle bottom. And if you do need a narrative, think about rate hikes right now. Like people are are are pricing in rate hikes for later this year. If you do get a rate hike or just the scare of one, the stock market dropping 10 to 20% would probably be enough to completely pivot what the market's expectations are of monetary policy. And that would probably be a bullish thing for Bitcoin. One of the reasons you could argue that crypto has been so weak is because, you know, there just hasn't been a great reason for rate cuts because the stock market keeps going to new all-time highs.
>> Mhm. Yeah, definitely. I could see that big market drop, then rate cuts, then bull. Ben, you're starting a crypto conference. It's in Miami November 21st. Investing through the cycles. Um, tell us about that. Um, 10% off tickets below. Prices increase closer to the event. So, get your tickets now. But tell us the impetus for why you want to start a crypto conference and what people can expect.
>> Well, it's I would say it's more than just a crypto conference. It's basically like, you know, there's always a bull market somewhere and and you know, midterm years suck for crypto. Like, you've been through them. I've been through them. we both know that they just they've never been good and no amount of mental gymnastics has changed that um despite us despite everyone wanting it to be different. And so the argument is like look every every investor is going to experience bare markets, right? And that's okay. Like that's where all the money's made anyways is in the bare market, the people that stick around. And so the argument is let's just try to get a conference together where we just talk about investing through these different cycles. what are the, you know, what are the things to be looking at at any given time and and kind of just respecting the cycles for what they are and not not trying to make them into something they're not. Not pretending that it has to play out a different way because of some prevailing narrative at the time, but to just respect it and to focus on it from more data driven perspective. So, the goal of the conference is to be a lot less hype, which maybe is somewhat antithetical to to conferences in general because I know like a lot of conferences are really about hype and getting people excited, but the point is to just meet, you know, people that really value that stuff. Not people that are always right because no one's always right, right? But to just find views that can be backed by something. Um, and then hopefully people can listen to a lot of different views, not just my own, but a lot of different views that probably would disagree with some of my views and then form their own thesis on how they want to, you know, invest through the different cycles. So, that's the goal and um, this will be the first one. So, we'll we'll see how it goes. I'm I'm pretty optimistic about it, but it's a it's a pretty big undertaking. I've I've come to find out very quickly that throwing a conference. So, hopefully it goes well. I I know it's going to go well and I see a lot of people um saying that they're going and getting tickets and and new speakers at it every day. But yeah, I was surprised when you uh said that, you know, you wanted to take on the responsibility of starting a conference. But, you know, really cool. I'm bullish on it. Um Ben, let's say a quick goodbye and then I want to still take a few minutes of your time because we're going to do something for the Altcoin Daily channel members. One final question. Biggest piece of advice for investing and trading and making money going into 2027. But before that, Ben, final thoughts for the Altcoin Daily audience.
>> Yeah, I would just say have a plan and stick to it and ignore all the noise because and I think I say something similar to that every time I come on your channel, but um it's true, right? And and like if you think about the narratives earlier this year, what were they like Jane Street and and what Yeah. I mean, all this other stuff and the the ISM, the money supply, like none of that mattered. None of it mattered.
>> That's a good point.
>> Just Yeah. And I and I try to tell people back like this doesn't matter. Um and and what I would argue is that there's a good chance that a lot of the bearish narratives next year aren't going to matter because the market will then be bullish again. So have a plan, stick to it, stick to the data, ignore everything else, and you're probably going to outform most people. Love it. And for our members, we're switching over to members right now. The final question, Ben, this is for, you know, people who've been through multiple cycles, so feel free to really give people the inside baseball or, you know, just specifically
>> understanding that we're transitioning out of the bare market hopefully into the new bull market of 2027.
>> Biggest piece of advice for investing and trading in crypto going in to this next year. And then what's a good strategy?