Bitcoin Broke the Bear Case. What Happens Next?

Transcript

I gotta be honest, like I I'm very confused and I This is the thing though, David. I mean, you you've you've probably gone through this before where like the market just doesn't make sense to sometimes like you know like it it like it's like why is you know last cycle why was Ethereum trading you know so low when Bitcoin was so high, right? why there's so many different times in in you know markets where it doesn't make sense but markets don't have to make sense you know I mean maybe maybe crypto was pricing all this stuff in before it happened bankless nation it is an interesting time in the market there appears to be an inflection point with the sentiment the bullishness around the market and so we're bringing back on Ben Cowan from

the cryptoverse Ben welcome back to bank list >> thanks me pleasure to be here as always >> Ben you recently had to put out a video boldly stating I was wrong. You were calling for a Q4 flush. I think that was pretty consensus for a while. Uh a Q4 flush around the time of the midterms which matched previous cycles. As I understand it, you were basically calling for a repeat of the standard four-year cycle. Uh which that's where like the Q4 bottoming happened. You're also pointing to the midterms rather than seemingly a Q2 bottom which is what we are so far experiencing. What gives you the conviction now that you were wrong then? Like why what made you actually wave the flag and say like, "Okay, I was actually wrong."

>> Well, I mean, the the post about me being wrong was not about sort of whatever happens in Q4 cuz who knows what happens in Q4, right? Like we don't know yet. Um, it was more so like I didn't think we would take out the May high, right? cuz in in all prior bare markets once we've crossed the 50we moving average once we put in a higher high the bare market was always over and so like I didn't really give the the idea of taking up the May high a lot of weight and so I you know the 57k that Bitcoin hit on July 1st I thought that was a local low because in 2018 we kind of bottomed at 5700 right around the same time it seemed like that would be

the summer low and then you know I expected a rally in July and um that was kind of where I first felt like I was kind of like getting off because we didn't really have a rally in July. We kind of just stayed at 60K and then so by the time August came around I was more so in the camp that we would go ahead and start kind of trending down into into a low but instead we started we got the rally I thought we would get in July. We got it in August, right? And so that was kind of how I first got on the wrong side, I think, of of of that.

From here, I mean, you know, I don't really know what's going to happen in Q4. A lot of it, I guess, depends on if we get this, you know, if Bitcoin can continue to accept above the range highs. Um, if it does not, like if we fade back down, we could still see Q4 weakness. But I don't like I wouldn't necessarily be in the camp that it has to be like a lower low, right? like it could be a it could be a higher low for all we know, especially given the fact that we've printed a higher high. So, I I think that that's kind of where I am right now. And the the reason I admitted I was wrong was just because I I think it's important to do that when when you are wrong. And you know, if I spend two months saying I don't think we're going

to take off the May high and then we take it out, right? I mean, like, where am I to hide? So, uh yeah, I think that was important. And we'll see what we'll see what Q4 has in store. just to just to emphasize what um what you're saying really it was about the middle of the year the the time frame around now about being bullish you go on to crypto Twitter everyone's very very bullish and excited there's a lot of momentum there's a lot of happiness in in the market and that's that's the part where you weren't expecting where sure even in bare markets we can go up 30% uh but we kind of did it twice Bitcoin kind of did it twice from um uh 63k up to 77k and then up to 80s uh 85k. Again, that second move feels a little soon in the

bare market. And if you >> right, >> if you if you are in the opinion that actually the the low is behind us and we're resuming the next phase of the cycle and then you look at the length of that bare market that we've had so far, it's short and it's easy and it's not that painful. And that's like the unique odd thing that I think people like you and even people like everyone I think are really contending with right now. >> Yeah. I mean, it it's kind of the same length of the 2019 bare market. um about 9 months, which you know I think I've made that comparison on your channel before, but the reason why I thought that you know and I still honestly have a hard time kind of coming to terms with the reason I thought it would it would still last a year uh was because in 2019

when it only lasted 9 months, we also had price based capitulation, right? Where there was a huge drop and it was also accompanied by a large uh a large increase in volume. Um, and a lot of the prior lows in the bare markets have have in the bare markets have ended when there was a massive spike in volume and we just haven't had that. Um, I mean the counterpoint of course is if we topped on apathy, right? If we don't top with a lot of volume, maybe we don't have to bottom with with a lot of volume. So yeah, I mean right right now I I think that I have to just be a student of the chart and say it it doesn't make sense to me. Like it it frankly doesn't. I mean with uh with the long end going up and you know energy prices heading

higher uh the dollar heading higher to me it makes sense to just kind of go and get your typical Q4 drop but you know the market does not have to conform to my expectations and as it stands right now it's not it's not conforming to my expectations because we're trading at like you know 85,000 um at least that's where it was or when I checked earlier. So, you know, I don't that that's kind of where I am. And I'm I'm basically now of the opinion that as long as as long as Bitcoin can can kind of hold above 83K, then it's hard it's hard to be, you know, deterministically bearish, right?

It's it's a lot harder to sort of be in that camp. One thing I want to check with you is something that does make sense to me, and that is comparing last bare market to this bare market and the congruence with the real world events found in each bare market. So last bare market was really bad. Uh Bitcoin fell below the 200week moving average for the better part of a year like 270 days. It was 30% below the 200week moving average. I think that was pretty idiosyncratic in Bitcoin's history to be that far below the 200E for that long. >> And then also we had three really bad events. You had Teraluna, you had three Capital, we had FTX. So much contagion that we had to heal from. And then we had the Gary Gendler era. And so like if you just look at the bottom of the

Bitcoin chart, it's down bad. It's long. It took a long time to recover. And if you compare to this this era, we we touched the 200 week. We were briefly below it by a few singledigit percentages, not really for that long. And then we were only there for just like a very short number of days by comparison. Something like a 100 days rather than the 270 of like last bare market right? >> And if you look at the sins that we've had to pay for as an industry, it's really just sailor selling Bitcoin below his average buy price. There's not there's not really a congruence with Teral Luna 3's capital FTX. Instead of Gary Gendler, we have, you know, the most favorable regulatory conditions of all time and our bare market correspondingly is just not that bad. So

these things do match. We have fewer sins to pay for, less time at or below the 200WE moving average. To me, that feels pretty explanatory about the differences between these two bare markets. When I when I say this, what do you think about how do you react? Yeah, I mean historically buying Bitcoin around the 200 moving average works out pretty well and then last cycle we you know we went pretty far below it which was somewhat abnormal. Um we don't really usually usually do that. So I mean I you know as far as as far as I'm concerned what I what I what I think the right approach to crypto has been and hopefully will continue to be is just start start buying in the second half of the midterm year and you're often rewarded. you know, I mean, I did it in 2018 and 2022 and I got wrecked in Q4

after buying in the summer. Um, and then this time my biggest regret was that, you know, in July, basically the I I gave myself the what I told myself I would do, I would buy in the second half of the midterm year as long as Bitcoin was below the.3 risk level, which is the risk metric that I use to navigate, you know, to buy Bitcoin. And I did do that, but it only lasted for 5 days, right? So >> it wasn't a very long time for me to accumulate. Like it was a it was some time but >> not a lot. Um and so I mean I guess that's kind of the important part of it is you know when the opportunities arise like to you know to take more advantage of them and and you know sometimes just kind of lump summing I guess is is more

advantageous than than DCAing because you can see just how little time we spent down at at those levels. So yeah, I mean last cycle we had the the collapse of FTX um and and you could argue that it was like a uh sort of like a dislocation event where it took Bitcoin kind of lower than perhaps it really needed to go. Uh and and this cycle, you know, we did have sailors selling, but we haven't really had a sort of like a dislocation event that is um that is kind of comparable, I feel like, to to what FTX was. And I mean now now with with Bitcoin, I mean the the the closest the the the the main thing I think crypto has to at least consider in

Q4 is just if the long goes up, is that going to put pressure in any way? Because normally you would expect the long and going higher to pressure long duration assets the most and that would be like you know cryptocurrencies is is one of those. Um but it's completely shrugged it off, right? completely shrugged it off. And so, uh, I mean, that's an example of of just having to like respect the chart rather than to put too much faith in in the macro. >> What do you think about the four-year cycle then these days? Uh, even even in the condition that we do get a higher low uh in Q4 around the midterms, kind of what you're saying, the window, what I'm hearing you say is the window still somewhat open for that possibility.

Maybe the lower low in Q4 is starting to look pretty not likely. But in the on the conditions of a higher low in uh around Q4 around the midterms still nonetheless the four-year cycle would have been something like a three and a half year cycle. Uh is that significant at all? Do we care about the cycles? How do you think about the cycles these days? I mean, with the S&P, you know, I mean, it it kind of has a four-year cycle as well, historically, and, you know, through the ' 50s, '60s, '7s, and 80s, and we had a low in 2014, 2018, 2022. Um, I I think that, you know, with with stocks, if you go back and look at the 1960s, 1970s, it would it would often bottom in Q4, but occasionally it would bottom earlier in the year, right?

Like occasionally bottom like May or June. Um, but I still feel like it's sort of representative of four-year cycle. I think a lot of people would have a hard time accepting that. They'd be like, "Well, no, the four-ear cycle's dead if you don't find a low in Q4." But like, I look at the stock market throughout those decades and still consider it to be a four-year cycle, even though occasionally the low was in like earlier in the year. Um, that is kind of my interpretation of it, but I I I think that, you know, if someone wanted to take the other side of that, they could just simply say, well, you know, that's kind of like coping. It's not really true. But, you know, as it relates to the 200WE moving average, if you think about it, like we during the midterm year, we went below the 50WE,

below the 100 week, and then to the 200E, and even below the 200E, which is what we always do in the midterm year. So, it's kind of hard to say like it didn't work out, right? Like that the four-year cycle failed when Bitcoin still ended up dropping below the 200WE moving average, which is something that many people thought wouldn't happen this year. Um, so I I think it's mixed and I think it's there's going to be a reason to continue the debate as to whether, you know, whether that is the four-year cycle or not. Like I tend to be more so in the camp that it is still indicative of four-year cycle, but I I could I could understand why some people might not necessarily agree with that.

>> Yeah, I think if somebody wanted to call the four-year cycle dead, we would need a lot more salient evidence and more of it. So like 3.5 is still pretty close. And then also we're going to need that multiple instances in a row to have conviction on that. >> And Bitcoin topped when it always tops. I mean, you know, from that from that perspective, it really didn't change. >> Mhm. >> What do you make of the fact that Bitcoin from top to bottom dropped 53% which is the smallest that has ever dropped top to bottom, which is expected. This has always been the way uh the Bitcoin has uh behaved over the cycles. Uh, but does this make you rerate Bitcoin's next possible highs in any particular way?

>> I mean, honestly, I feel like going lower would allow for a more euphoric bull market. Um, but, you know, if if that's the low, then we still likely have diminishing returns where you're only going to have like you're last cycle we went up seven or 8x and so this cycle will probably be, you know, less than that would be my guess. um if if Bitcoin were to go have gone lower, then maybe you would have a higher multiple just because you really washed people out, but that doesn't really seem to be the case right now. Um so I would I would just say expect diminishing returns. But then the other part of it too is if the low is truly in uh which you know every day that goes by where we continue to close above May high, I feel like the odds increase. If

the low's in, then we have to start measuring the timing of the bull market from July, which will mean at the end of this bull market, it might top sooner, right? Because if you think about it, last cycle, Ethereum uh bottomed in June and then it topped in August, right? Like it topped earlier. So, it would make me think that if Bitcoin has bottomed in the summer, then it will likely top perhaps a little bit earlier than it normally does just because the length of the bull market would be would be kind of reaching that sort of the maturity point earlier in the cycle.

>> There's already been like quite a bit of froth in the market like in specific assets and so there are some specific assets that have done very very well. Hyperlquid comes to mind. VVV lighter uh near a lot of these assets are up up bigly. Uh backpack for example is up 50% today. And so some assets are getting a lot of movement in the middle of the market. The blue chips not responding in the same way. So like yeah, we're talking about maybe some early unexpectedly unexpected bullishness a little bit early on the Bitcoin chart.

Uh but ultimately at the end of the day, it's still kind of just like not moving all that hard. Is there any signal there that some tokens in crypto are up up bigly pushing all-time highs? Zcash, I didn't even mention, is is putting on 28 billion in inside of just like a year. And so there's been some incredible wealth gained >> despite Bitcoin only being up like a total of like 12 or 13% so far in the last like three months. What do you make of this? >> Yeah, I think I think all coins are running because monetary policy is is not restrictive right now. Um, I think that's kind of where it where what it comes down to. Um, I if you think about it for from 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, monetary policy was actually really

restrictive because the Fed funds rate was above what I consider to be the neutral rate. So, if you approximate the neutral rate as the 2-year Treasury yield in the United States, u monetary policy was Fed funds rate was basically above that level for the entire duration of the cycle. And therefore, because of that, altcoins underperformed essentially for the entire duration of that cycle. But right now, the Fed funds rate is at 4% and the 2-year yield is at almost 4.9%. So, right now, you could argue the Fed funds rate is still 90 basis points away from actually being restrictive. And you can see like, as you mentioned, like altcoins are wasting no time in uh in sort of taking advantage of that. So if if they were to

get back to a more restrictive stance then in like but that could certainly affect all coins but as it stands right now if the status quo remains unchanged if the 2-year yield remains unchanged which it won't like it will change but if let's say it stays constant and if you look at like expectations for how long it will take the Fed to get there that's not going to happen until say April as it stands right now or even June I believe. So, you know, I I think there's the argument that altcoins are are kind of feeling that that monetary policy is not as tight um as it's not as restrictive. Liquidity is still restrictive, but like but but the the central bank balance she or the the Fed funds rate is is not. Um and so, of

course, altcoins are are sort of taking advantage of that. I mean, what's really interesting is um if you look at like all Bitcoin pairs, I think like I think I've shared that on your on your uh channel before, like the all Bitcoin pair chart, like it hasn't really even made much of a move, right? And that's kind of the crazy thing. Like I could share my screen and show that. Um but here, if you look at at all Bitcoin pairs, I mean, it's I mean, we haven't even taken out the summer high, right? Like it's still it it still looks like you would never you would never look at what's happening now. If you look at certain altcoins, you could be like, "All right, this is this is like this is really crazy and and whatnot, but if you were to look at this chart, it's not

necessarily any different than like every other little rally that we've had by all, right? At least not at this point, right?" And and the thing is is the the major rallies by all Bitcoin pairs that you see in 2021 and 2017, they didn't occur until after Bitcoin had a euphoric rally. Um and Bitcoin hasn't had a euphoric rally, right? Like it's still hanging out at around $85,000. And and so you would argue that in order for Bitcoin in order for to have sort of like a true durable rotation into altcoins, Bitcoin would need to be a lot higher uh than it is than it is right now. and and people would have to be convinced that Bitcoin has topped. The reason why there was no rotation into altcoins in 2025 was because we topped

on apathy. There was not really it was never really obvious the majority of market participants that we had actually topped, right? It was never obvious. So why why would people sell their Bitcoin for altcoins if they keep if they think Bitcoin is going to keep going up? Um whereas if you if you trigger all those top indicators like the terminal price and the you know the MBRV score is going to the roof and the all the onchain metrics are going through the roof and people are convinced that bitcoins topped then they rotate into altcoins and then you get these massive rallies by all bitcoin pairs but ever said because we haven't had that every single rally we've had by all bitcoin pairs has just I mean still the chart is still kind of trending down right like it hasn't necessarily really given the

indication that it's going to just completely spike upwards and and you know and and really take everyone by surprise. I'm not again I'm not and I said the same thing last cycle. You can have rallies with altcoins, right? Like we're not I'm not saying you can't have rallies. It's just that until you have a euphoric rally by Bitcoin, you shouldn't expect a longer rotation into altcoins to occur. >> I see something you said I want to double tap on. We talked about how we have had more permissive monetary policy as of late, giving oxygen for altcoins to run, but we haven't had a lot of liquidity. There hasn't been a lot of liquidity injection. Does liquidity correlate to Bitcoin returns while permissive monetary policy more correlates to altcoin returns or did I just read into something that's not

there? >> So, there's a chart I can show like I I think I should probably explain what I mean because it it's kind of some people don't really understand what I mean when I say like monetary policy is accommodative but liquidity is still restricted. like what does that even mean, you know? Um, so if I just so people understand where where I'm coming from, if you if you sum up the balance sheets of like a lot of different central banks, you you and convert it to dollars, you get this orange line here. And what it shows you is that in 2021 and 2022, like global liquidity was around 30 trillion and right now it's at around 25 trillion. So, the reason why altcoins have sucked for so long is because there's just not nearly as much

liquidity as there was back in 2021. And and you were you were in crypto back in uh in 2018 and 2019 and you saw do you remember the 2019 bull market where Bitcoin kind of like outperformed most everything else. Um, and >> oh yeah, like the middle of the year kind of like it was like the ghost bull market where like Bitcoin went to like 14K, Ether went to like $450 and everyone thought it was on and it was the biggest bull trap of all time, >> right? But the reason the reason why al the reason why back then there was no rotation into altcoins is because for the same reason today, right? There just wasn't enough there. Liquidity was really low. And so if you zoom in here, you can see back then that liquidity topped in March of 2018 and it was still

well below those highs for several years after that, right? And throughout that entire period, altcoins underperformed Bitcoin. It wasn't until you had this massive liquidity crisis, you had the the pandemic. It wasn't until that forced the money printers to come back on that in 2020 that's when altcoins really started to to durably outperform. And there's a chart that kind of helps explain if you look at uh it's called the advanced decline index. And we're going to look at the advanced decline index of the top 100 cryptocurrencies.

It's been trending down since 2021. Meaning that like most cryptocurrencies have been going down rather than up since 2021. The time that everyone wants to get back to is 2020 and 2021 where in early 2021 where this thing was trending up where everything was going up, right? Like Bitcoin was going up, Ethereum was going up. >> True. Yeah. But the problem is we didn't get that until after there was a crisis to then justify the money printing which then allow global net liquidity to surge to new all-time highs. So, we're in this like catch 22 where as long as there's not a crisis, there's no reason for liquidity to really ramp up. And and so because of that, it doesn't mean you can't have bull markets. We had a bull

market for 3 years not too long ago despite restrictive liquidity conditions. Um so it doesn't mean you can't have a bull market. It just means that the returns are probably not going to be as impressive. But eventually the the the money printers will come back on, right? like we know that because that's the only way they seem to be able to solve our problems. And so eventually like those types of market conditions will come back, but I don't think it's going to happen until there's a reason for that. So in the meantime, you can still have moves in altcoins. You can still have moves in Bitcoin, but I wouldn't expect a full-blown alt season when global net liquidity is is is much lower than it was in 2021, 2022.

>> Is what you're saying is that the people who are wishing for an alt season, they're by proxy wishing for some sort of crisis to happen, too. So maybe they shouldn't do that. >> And that was that was what I kind of kept saying last cycle um was like in order for people to get what they want, you have to have a crisis, but how but crypto wouldn't hold up well in a crisis. Like think about what crypto did during the pandemic, right? Like it dropped a ton. So in order to get an alt season in my opinion, I I could be wrong, right? I mean, we already established I was wrong about Bitcoin taking out the May high, which it already did. So I don't want to imply that I I I can't be wrong about this, too. But in order in order to have that

it's kind of like you have to go down for you remember last cycle with Ethereum I kept sort of screaming that Ethereum had to go home and like everyone thought I was crazy you know like why don't you just shut up about this >> and you were wrong for a really really long time and then you were right >> right but but the point is is is it finally went home and I and I think I even came on your show and said I was like in order for Ethereum to go to all-time highs it needs to go home first right and then right after it went home it actually did go to an all-time high but unfortunately the four-year cycle kind of like stopped it from really continuing beyond that and we just Ethereum just ran out of time to bribe because the the midterm year kind of

arrived and and and Q4 of the of the post having year arrived. So that's the sort of the argument for alt season is you can't have it until there's a crisis and there's not going to be a crisis until there's a re until until stocks drop, right? and stocks aren't going to durably drop until until there's a reason for them to and and a lot of that is related to the AI trade, right? And so as long as as long as it's built out in AI continues and there's not really a crisis over there, you look at the stock market, uh the top seven or the MAG 7 I think make up like some 35% of the overall S&P 500 because it's weighted by market cap. Um, so if the AI trade were to ever struggle and the wind comes out

of those most concentrated names first, that could then lead to a reason to turn the printers on. But yeah, it's like it's how do you how would crypto escape um, you know, not dropping during that crisis. And that's why it makes it such a hard >> cycle, a hard market. And that's why it was a hard market last cycle, too, is because everyone kind of knows in order to have that, you have to drop. So then it keeps some people from buying, but that doesn't mean you can't have a bull market. Just have kind of have more realistic expectations of what's possible. >> Sure. Yeah. I've been trading crypto for almost a decade. And I've used so many different wallets, exchanges, aggregators, or frontends. And I'm basically always looking for the same thing, just one interface with a deep liquidity across a bunch of chains and

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Near.com is the best way to be onchain and be in control. Get 20% of your trading fees back on near.com using the bankless link in the show notes, not investment advice. Banklist Nation, we've built something for you. Introducing the Bankless MCP. Chat GBT and Claude are great at a lot of things, but ask them anything beyond the basics of crypto about protocol mechanics, tokconomics, or just what happened last week in crypto, and the gaps will start to show. The problem is context. Bank list, on the other hand, has spent almost a decade building one of the deepest archives of crypto data anywhere. More than 2,000 podcast transcripts, 10,000 articles, and countless conversations with the people actually building this industry. And now we've structured all of that data into the banklist MCP. So you can go and connect it to your claude or chatbt and

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So, let's do it together. Go subscribe to this podcast. Search the DeFi Report wherever you get your podcast, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or find a link in the show notes. There's a new episode waiting for you now. Well, one thing I do notice about this global net liquidity chart that you've got is that the the red line, the liquidity line, the one that, you know, goes through the moon right during CO, right? >> The only reason why it is flat now and it's been flat since 2022 is because of the crisis in the first place. But if you this this chart goes all the way back to 2007 and up to that point, it's just a pretty solid linear slope up and to the right, right? Right. And so you what's stopping it from just kind of, you know, being flat for a while as we

the dust settles from like the greatest monetary expansion event ever and like maybe it just takes five 10 years. I don't know. But like why why doesn't it also just slowly start grinding up into the right as it had from 2007? >> I it probably will, right? Okay. But but but the point is is like you're people should temper their expectations for like a rotation into into for into like alt season if it is just a sort of a slower expansion because >> you know in order to get what you saw in 2020 2021 I I would argue you would need you would need true ample liquidity coming in. If it's just a slow grind to the right up to the right that's different. But right now, you know, the reasons why it's so low is because a lot of central banks embarked on quantitative tightening for so long,

right? >> And and now the reason why it's dropping is not because of quantitative tightening, but it's because the dollar is going up. Because if you think about it, in order to have this chart, we have to convert all foreign currencies into the dollar, right? So that we have a common denominator to add up. Um, and if the dollar goes up, then that means the relative the the purchasing power of dollar of of currencies worldwide goes down. Therefore, that's what can kind of keep this from from really moving up in the short term is if the dollar continues to show strength, which the dollar likely will continue to show strength uh for a while because we're still trying to figure out how many rate hikes we need in order to actually kind of bring inflation back to, you know, so back down to 2%. So, I I don't really

think that this is going I don't really think that global net liquidity is going to new all-time highs um anytime soon. And even a 20% drop in stocks would likely not move the needle. I mean, we had a 20% drop in stocks in 2025 and net liquidity still stayed really really low. So, yeah, I don't I I think in if you don't have a crisis, there's no reason. And you can see with the crisis in '08, this thing moved up a lot, right? like it it it really started to increase >> and and so if you if you actually take this uh amongst other things uh you can create a liquidity risk metric. Okay, and it looks like this. And so what this shows is that liquidity conditions are still really tight, right? And they have

been since 2022. And if you think about it, the only other time there was a um a top on apathy was in 2019 when also conditions were really really tight. Bitcoin was started in 2009 when liquidity conditions were really really loose. The only time that we've seen conditions this tight was before Bitcoin even existed. So that's the reason why we're in we're kind of in uncharted territory for Bitcoin. We haven't seen restrictive policy for so long. And but this chart if you if you think about it and I know like when Bitcoin's going up right now like it's hard to be like oh well no policies loose like just look at everything that's happening. But if we take a step back and we say what has Bitcoin accomplished relative to the S&P

500 over the last 5 years you can see that Bitcoin is is at the same valuation against the S&P that it was at in 2021 and you know 2022 and and 2024 2025. It hasn't really moved. Then so the reason it hasn't really moved is because liquidity conditions are are are much tighter. >> H interesting. Is there any reason to suspect that Bitcoin would be lagging behind the S&P and it has some catch-up to do or is that utopium? >> I I think eventually it it will outperform the S&P again. But I think in order for it to and that doesn't mean it can't I mean look last cycle it did outperform the S&P for a few years but it just didn't it didn't really go up nearly as much as it normally does is the point. So, if you think about like

where it is right now, >> it is I'm not saying it can't go up, right? I'm just saying that it it it's unlikely to have that large catch-up trade until until liquidity comes back down. And I'm not saying it doesn't have to go back to zero, right? Like maybe maybe it drops just back to like fl.5.6 and that can maybe be um enough because in 2017 when we had an alt season liquidity risk was just around was around.5 right.6 6 which was reasonable right that's kind of like an area where there's liquidity is not nearly as tight but when it's at 8.9 I have to be a little bit skeptical as to the the strength of of of sort of the and by the way I mean you you mentioned

several altcoins earlier that are rallying >> as I've said in 2023 2024 etc like I'm not talking about your altcoin right to the audience like I don't like yes a lot of altcoins are going up and yes as long as Bitcoin holds above the May highs they will likely continue to go up. Um, so, and I'm not trying to take anything away from that. I don't want to discourage people from taking on risk because the liquidity risk is high. I'm just trying to communicate to people, hey, don't expect 100x return on on some of these altcoins at this stage. By the way, David, if if liquidity risk were at zero right now and and you know we were in like a a bare market, like a massive

drop, like I would be banging the drums about >> backing up the truck, right? Yeah. >> Yeah. And and a lot of people think I'm like the Grinch when it comes to altcoins, you know. But if you think about it, ever since my channel has been really popular, right, for like the last 5 years, liquidity conditions have been really, really tight. People don't remember what I was like in 2019 and 2020 because my channel was so small. But back then I was all about these riskier assets, right? I was all about them and and kind of banging the drum. Hey, you know, go buy Ethereum. Go. Cuz when Ethereum was at $100, I'm like, this is I mean, the first video on my channel is when is is about Ethereum and talking about how undervalued it was.

So, it's not that I'm like the Grinch. I just I'm trying to recognize that in order for the for the riskier assets to do well, there's certain types of liquidity conditions and monetary policy conditions that allow them to do well and then certain conditions that allow them to kind of underperform. >> Yeah, there there's a lot of metrics and a lot of things I've been looking at uh charts I'm looking at that are 5 years old. And what I mean by that is like the precedent of the average crypto investor based off of the charts that we look at is really started and at the end of the COVID bubble like 2021 to 2022. Maybe a lot of us got into crypto during the COVID bubble and that imprinted upon us some unrealistic expectation but ever since 2022 we have been in a restrictive

environment. All coins have bled. ETH BTC is almost at a five-year downtrend. five-year downtrend, a decade, a half a decade of going down. And this is now the new normal for I think the average crypto investor. And so when you show the pretty restrictive liquidity environment uh for five years, I'm actually kind of just like, well, we've been as investors, we've been living in this restrictive environment for 5 years, >> right? >> We're like the assets are probably pretty sens sensitive. if liquidity goes up any more than it has been for the last five years, that would probably be pretty good because we're used to pretty restrictive environments. And so, at least maybe that's my I'm trying to find some silver lining here of just like,

hey, like we've been living in this in this industry for five years of restriction. I'm not saying that that means that it's going to go down and and be in our favor now, but even if it does, imagine the upside there. >> Yeah. And I I did an interview the other day and and they were like, you know, they asked me, they're like, I'm guessing, they're like, we don't, you know, people ask about alt season and if it's going to ever happen again. And we're like, we just kind of roll our eyes and, you know, it's never going to happen. And they're like, I'm guessing you think the same. And I'm like, no, I think I think it will happen again. I just think that I think that you just can't have it until until there's a reason for liquidity conditions to be looser. And I I don't think that's going

to happen until until the AI trade starts to unwind some, you know. Um, and who knows who knows when that's going to be. I mean, that could be, you know, years from now for all we know. Like, we have no idea. Um, if if there were a drop in in stocks, then that would honestly like it would it would hurt crypto in the short term. But if anything happened that allowed policy to become a lot more looser, it would be great for crypto, right? I mean, and I don't like I don't know at what point we get there, but and and I don't think we're going to get there right now. I mean, you can have a drop in stocks, but I don't think you're going to have a reason for the printers to come back on because inflation is getting away from

us. And if they turn the if they turn the printers on, that's just going to lead to a massive wave within and that and honestly, like, do we really want that? Like, I mean, is do we really want our grocery bills to double up just so we can have, you know, a few months where crypto is doing well? I don't really know if that's if it's worth it. >> Yeah, that doesn't that doesn't feel like the right trade. Like everyone wants the upside of 2021 without the downside of 2022, but that's just you can't have that. >> And this, by the way, this chart here kind of was I was trying to communicate or visually communicate what you were already telling the audience about how, you know, like look at 2021. There was so much interest in crypto and then it's just been trending down ever since. And

I have a uh I think I've shared it with your with your audience before like a social risk metric and what you see is that it's just been trending down since 2021. like social interest in crypto has only been going down uh for the last 5 years. And yeah, you could paint it, you could say it's because of um you know, people's fascination with memecoins last cycle. And you know, you could argue one of the reasons Ethereum underperformed last cycle is because uh people just got distracted by garbage, right? Like random crap and stuff. Um, but yeah, I mean, social interest has been going down for so long and I keep looking I keep looking to see if this is ever going to change and I haven't I haven't seen it change yet. Um, I would I would

love for it to change because I don't want like I don't want the industry to just kind of fade away. Like I want it to come back. I want it to have relevance, >> but I also haven't seen the evidence yet that retail is coming back. >> Yeah. I will say anecdotally, anecdotally, I I use the uh weekly rollup that I record every Thursday that comes out every Friday with with Ryan as kind of a barometer because it's it's so consistent. Like there's there's no guess. It's just me and Ryan. It's the same so show format. We talk about the news and it's been consistent as long as we've done it. So five years. And so I am kind of able to use that as a barometer. The views I'm able to use as a barometer. In the last month or so, views have doubled of the on the- weekly

rollup. And that's also indicative of some of the other like more normal content like we've had on uh Johan Kerbot uh five or six times and the most recent one double the views as average. And so I definitely agree with you. I've been seeing it for myself the downtrend in views ever since 2021 2022. But recently I have actually shown I have seen a changing of the winds which makes me you know makes me bullish. Makes me pretty bullish. Is it I'm curious is the doubling is it higher than it was in say like 2024 and 2025 or is it still below those levels?

>> It's high definitely higher than 2024 2025 like the the weekly roll up from last week is at 20,000 views and on a weekly roll up in 2021 2022 it would have been like 30,000 views. So we are not far off. >> Is that on YouTube? >> That's on YouTube. Yeah. So I I should say something and I I I don't mean to uh >> YouTube YouTube metrics are different now. >> They are. So >> I was wondering about that. >> So would you like me to explain it? >> Yes, I would actually. >> Okay. So So my views for forever like I was getting around 100,000 views a video. Now I'm getting like 200,000 views a video. So starting in August of this year, which is probably exactly

when you notice the change. Starting in August, uh, YouTube changed the way they count views. So, previously they never published what it was previously, but the general consensus among people who made long form videos was that um, it took about like someone would have to watch your video for about 30 seconds for it to count as a view. >> And now they lowered it. >> And now it's like if they see it for one second, it counts as a view. >> You know, you know why they did that? Because that's what Elon Musk did with X where a view on X. He just he Elon Musk pumped the hell out of his metrics to make X look good. And I guess now YouTube has to adapt for view inflation to compete,

>> right? But every every like a lot of other platforms are are already like that. I think like Instagram and Tik Tok I think they would always just count the view from the first view from the first second. YouTube was unique in the sense that it wouldn't count it. And so I got the notification on my YouTube studio uh a month ago that said starting like I think it was you know mid August I don't remember like August sometime like around August 15th to August 20th maybe like the 18th or something I can't remember but around that time they started changing it and it was exactly at that point where my views essentially doubled and so like I don't have two to three times the amount of people watching my channel that I did before. I

see. >> It's just that they count the views differently now. >> Okay. Damn. I was I was worried that that was the >> I don't mean to rain on the parade, but I just I know I know that because I just was watching my own views and I'm like I know this is not or I know organic. >> I was like, man, is is attention really coming back into crypto this hard cuz it seems Yeah. Well, all right. Bummer. Uh well, so you have this metric where you look at everyone's YouTube views and so now now is that metric kind of just blown up for you because the algo? >> I can I can show it. Um, >> yeah, >> that was I was sort of showing it earlier, but I didn't I could zoom in on it more. Um, so here it is. So, let me

go down. It's YouTube. So, YouTube views and it takes a little while to load. Um, I think we actually pulling Yeah, it's pulling a bunch of data. >> Yeah. So, we can actually look at your channel if you want. Um, uh, where is it? >> Bank list right here. >> So, yeah, like you've had a you had a huge surge, but look when it surged right around in August. Yeah, we also had Tom Leon right then and he always pumps in a ton of views. Uh but yeah, I get your point. >> But if you look at mine as well, um this big surge here like like it started it started it started going up a lot in August right around the time that they changed it. The reason why it dropped a lot in September was because I was out of town and I just wasn't making as much

videos and so it's why it's not as as elevated. But if you combine everyone um back on here and you zoom in, >> right? Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty distinct. >> There was an issue in September with the way they were kind of like collecting the views, which is why it went down, but the spike the spike occurred because of an artificial thing. It's kind of like it's kind of like when you're um you know how a lot of like the inflation reports or like labor market reports are really really frustrating because they'll change the way they calculate it and then they expect you to still monitor the same series in the same way.

That's what makes it kind of hard now because I'm for the social interest. I don't know how to factor that in exactly like how do I >> I I probably should scale prior views like relative to what we're seeing now and then maybe have a better understanding of what views are actually doing relative to the past. Yeah, I'd say there's not even a single internet metric that I can really rely on because even Twitter followers, I'm just like, "Okay, sweet. I'm getting a growth in Twitter followers, but that's because of AI." Like AI bots are just like through the roof now. And so that even that metric is all messed up. >> Well, actually, we could look I mean, we could look at other metrics, other social metrics, and see if if you know the because we could say, "All right, YouTube went up. Did other platforms go

up a concern amount?" Right? And so if you were to look at look at like YouTube subscribers for instance, like that didn't change. you still have to hit subscribe. Um, >> so let's see what that's doing. You see this? Like there's >> Yeah, that's close to zero. That's that's close to nothing. Yeah. >> So that hasn't really changed. If you look at followers to analysts on Twitter or X, um, that hasn't really All these charts take forever to load, but like that hasn't really changed a whole lot. Like it's still really really low. It's still well below where it was in 2025 and and for a lot of 2024. >> Um, we could even I don't know who's going to Wikipedia to learn about crypto. like I don't have any many people, but that's still really really low. Um, and then we also have a few

other ones I think since I've I've been on your channel. Uh, one was um, uh, Coinbase, I think. Uh, >> Coinbase signups or Coinbase volume. >> Yeah, like the Coinbase app. I I think we have a risk metric for it. So, let me show you. >> It's like the app rankings. Yeah. So yeah, >> so this >> this is the social risk, but here you have Coinbase app rankings, right? And you can see that that's still pretty low right now. Like it it actually did get a nice bounce, but it's still really really low. Um Google Trends like that is still really low. That hasn't changed. Um and then if you look at like followers to Twitter or followers on X to like exchanges and layer ones and analysts, like they're all still really

really low. So, unfortunately, the this the the bump we saw on YouTube hasn't really been, >> you know, corroborated other places. >> All right. Well, I'm glad I got that mystery out of the way. Hopefully, the listeners found that as interesting as I did because I've definitely been looking for some answers around that. So, thank you. Let's get back into some macro stuff. I want I want to get your read on like the macro story and just economic health. Uh, one one of the things that you correctly predicted was that we were going to get higher energy prices, higher yields, higher raising rates, and then the dollar was would strengthen. All of those things happened except the one difference is that Bitcoin just bulldozed through all of those into a higher high. Exactly. What what do you make of that? I think like the market

including the equities market right now is looking at that is looking at high rates and getting jittery. But also another part of the market is looking at higher rates and being like I don't care. I'm going up anyways. How are you reading this situation? >> I got to be honest like I I'm very confused and I This is the thing though, David. I mean, you you've you've probably gone through this before where like the market just doesn't make sense to sometimes like you know like it it like it's like why is you know last cycle why was Ethereum trading you know so low when Bitcoin was so high right like why there's so many different times in in you know markets where it doesn't make sense but markets don't have to make sense you know I mean maybe maybe crypto was pricing all this stuff in

before it happened um I don't really know all I know for me is that I am confused by what's happening because the the the hard part for me to accept is that the macro trade was right. Right. But the things that I said like all the things that don't matter were correct. You know, like the dollar going higher, energy going higher, yields going higher. The things that people aren't really trading. I mean, I trade energy. So, like I I've like that's done well. Um but for most for the most part, like a lot of the viewers are not out there, you know, buying XLE, right? or Exxon because they're trying to they're just wanting to buy crypto. Those are all right. And so I thought that that would then affect Bitcoin and it hasn't,

right? Like it hasn't. And and I've I've just forced myself to say, look, as long as we're above 83K, I I'm going to have to take a step back on this on this bare market idea. If we get back below 83K on like a weekly if we're back below the May high, then I will still lean into Q4 weakness, but I wouldn't be as deterministic about it being a new low, right? Like it could just be coming back down to print a higher low. In fact, that would probably be my base case at this point is if if that weakness were to actually materialize because crypto's gone up a lot. I mean, think about how far some of these coins would have to drop in order to put a new low at this point. Like, it'd be a massive, massive drop. And I don't know like I don't know

if that is the most likely outcome with with where Bitcoin's trading right now. So, um yeah, I mean I think that's where I am and and I I'm happy to admit that I don't fully understand it. And I hope that I hope that people don't, you know, I hope people like look at that and just recognize that I'm I'm human and I'm fallible and that I don't always have the answers to to what's going on in the markets. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm trying to not be too inherently bullish about it, but when I see Bitcoin just again bulldozing through some really tough macro conditions, I'm like sick. Awesome. That's so bullish. I don't know. It's like hindsight bullish. I'm trying I I want it to be forwardlooking bullish because if it if it continues to

bulldoze and it'll continue to bulldoze, what's up? >> Let me show you something just to just to keep us at bay, okay? like just just so that we're not blindly bullish, okay? Because like I like I really, you know, the thing I've wanted ever since 2021 is to feel like with a clear conscience to be super bullish on the entire industry, you know, like and and just say like every it's going to outperform the S&P, it's going to outperform gold, like like this is the time to get in the industry. Like I I want that because like I want to I want to root for the market, you know? Like I didn't like why would I spend my entire life making videos about crypto if I hated it, you know? Like that wouldn't make sense. It'd be it'd be a lot easier for me to just bull

about altcoins and and make a lot of people, you know, like me. The the the one thing that like kind of makes me like, okay, like what am I like am I missing something? is this silver chart from, you know, a decade or two ago where we set like a high and then we set a low and then we had this like massive surge above the range high. You see that? Mhm. But then by the end of the week, we were right back below it. And so I I I I'm trying to like I don't think that's the base case here. Like I'm not saying that's the base case.

Bitcoin is still trading above the range high. What I'm saying is if Bitcoin were to come back down and close back below the May high and you unwind, it could I mean altcoins would unwind a lot faster because they're they're trading they're trading the break that that the Bitcoin is breaking out and the bare market's over. If you get an idea that the bare market is not actually over, then altcoins are going to unwind a lot faster than than Bitcoin would. So, I would say like just watch like I this is all I'm saying and I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying watch the weekly candle because this is where it is. If we close back below >> 80 what 82.8K >> on the weekly

>> on the weekly a close below that which is only $1,000 lower than where we are, right? Like there's not a lot of wiggle room and we still have two days before the weekly close. If we close below that, then I think everyone needs to go take a cold shower and and and and be like, "All right, maybe we have to go down one last time." Like, maybe we have to go down again into Q4. Okay? And and from there, hopefully we can then start a new bull market. That's the only thing I would say. If we accept above it, if we accept above it, >> if we accept above it on this weekly candle, >> Yeah. then I'm I'm in the same camp.

Like I'm in the same camp as you. Like I don't like I'm not going to sit here and and be the Grinch for the entire fourth quarter of the year, right? So by the time your viewers are watching this, we'll they'll know. Like they'll know. >> We're recording this on Friday, September 5th. This is coming out Monday, September 28th. And so the mo the weekly candle will have closed 12 hours ago if you're listening to this Monday morning. >> Exactly. So I I would say like look at the weekly candles and you know I would say the most important close is the one coming up. I'm not going to say that you can't have a future one that happened. I mean at any point if it happens before but like over the next few weeks like everything changes but I would say the most important one would be this one

because if we close above it I think that's going to be further confirmation to skeptics that the low is in right because now you've got the close above it silver didn't get the close above it right it was just a wick back up so if we get the close more bears become bulls and it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way if you close below low here. Think about how like like imagine >> it got rejected. The the the new high got rejected. Yeah. >> Right. Imagine for a moment that Bitcoin is now at 79K and all of a sudden we're going into Q4. It's like, oh crap. Like what if what if what if we get the the Q4 low right after everyone thinks it's not going to happen. Um that that's the

only thing that's keeping me back. But as I said, I'm not I'm not going to sit here and and bang the drum as long as we're above 83K, right? I I just want people to watch it and and to just be willing to pivot from the the the bull view quickly so you're not watching altcoins drop for 2 or 3 months and you're wishing you took profits, right? So, just watch the weekly close and I I I don't think you have to frontr run it. I don't think you have to sit here and be like, "Oh, let me frontr run this and go ahead and predict what's going to happen." I would say respond to it. If the weekly close happens below it, then pivot back to being bearish going into Q4. And if not, then stay bullish.

>> Ben, incredibly sober analysis. Just we're it's such a gift to have you in the industry. I appreciate you always coming on and kind of just walking us through so much incredible data. You're incredibly fluent with all of this. Uh you have a conference coming up in Miami on in November. Talk to me about that. Yeah, basically, you know, I've been to a lot of conferences and the thing I've wanted more than anything is to be able to have people on stage providing their unfiltered opinion about markets and not just crypto, but just markets in general >> and and and to not be afraid to kind of say like what their opinion is because I've been to a lot of conferences and it and it feels like most of the talks are just the bare case for Bitcoin is that it's going to be in 20 at $20 million in

five years. And I'm just like, am I really getting anything out of out of listening to this talk when I truly like I don't think many I don't think anyone believes that, you know, and I don't really feel like I'm getting anything out of it. So, what I wanted to do was was have people come and provide their opinions about markets because that's the way we grow and learn is and and and to not not assume that everyone's opinion is wrong just because it disagrees because think about think about how many times I've been wrong over the last say five or six years. And there have been so many times like recently, right? Like like with taking out the May high, there have been so many times where I was so convinced that my view was right. And even with Ethereum going home last cycle, like I

was convinced my view was right. And it ended up being right, but it took like, you know, it took two years longer than I thought it would, you know, and and that's like >> I was right in a way, but in another way I was wrong because it it took longer than I thought. So the amount of times I've been so convinced I was right, I have to remind myself, I'm going to be wrong again in the future. And so I want to hear what other opinions are so that I can better articulate or better get, you know, get a better understanding of of my what my own views are. So hopefully hopefully we have the conference, we have a lot of different people that provide a lot of different views and and then people can like walk away from it kind of understanding like

what the bull case is, what the bear case is um rather than just get one side of the story because if you get one side of the story then that's kind of how you you you get wrecked because everyone's just in on the same trade. >> The conference is in Miami November 21st. Where can people get tickets? Is it a ticketed event? How do people get access? >> Yeah, just uh bjaminowan.com and then there's a conference tab. We actually have Sailor, Michael Sailor is going to be speaking at it. Um, >> uh, Grant Cardone, we got Mark Yusco. I think you know Mark Yusco. Yep. Um, and Allesio Restani, he's going to be there. I think he's he's pretty interesting and has pretty good take on markets. Um, Jason Pazino. We got a lot of people that are are are interested in in coming and talking. Um, we got James Czech.

He's like a more of an onchain guy. Um, >> so we got Mike Mclo. I mean, he's more bearish, but but again, >> you need to have both. Yeah. >> Gareth Saloway, David Lynn, they're coming to But that's the point is we we need we need we need everyone cuz it's a market and the market reflects all of our views, not just your views, not just my views. It reflects everyone's views. So, I think it's important. Um, and I think like what I'd like to do is like I feel like by listening to like the really really bullish views and then the really really bearish views, I think the truth is probably somewhere in between. Yeah, we'll get a link to the conference in the show notes. Ben, thank you so much for coming on.

>> Thanks for joining me. >> Bank stationation, you guys know the deal. Crypto is risky, but that's why we are here. The institutions have landed, so we are going even further west. This is a frontier. It's not for everyone, but we are glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.