This Will Trigger The Next BIG Drop | Benjamin Cowen

Ajouté : 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]If the low is in, which is not my base case, but if it is, I think we'll at least revisit it later this year. Why this is scary is because imagine the S&P drops into October and it forms this low, everyone loads up on Bitcoin, and then finally you get a recession that lasts for like 2 years. Maybe it's like 2019 where you just drop 50% and then you rally. And imagine what we would have done in 2019 [music] if we had not had the or 2020 if we had not had the pandemic, right? Like maybe we wouldn't have had the crash. Right now, I'm mostly in the time-based capitulation camp, right? Like I think we need to give it towards October before I really start to think the market might turn around. I almost wonder if the most likely outcome is to find a low between say, and I know this sounds kind of scary, but I I almost wonder if it's to find a low between >> Looking into the channel's data, I couldn't help notice that almost over 90% of you watching my videos are actually not subscribed to my channel yet. If there is one simple thing you can do to help me, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much. Your support means a lot to me.

[00:00:57]It's great to see you. First of all, congrats. I know your wife gave birth to your fifth child 3 days ago, May 10th.

[00:01:04]So, congrats. How have you guys have been? Good. Yeah, things are good over here. We're just a little tired, but I mean, with it being our fifth, it's not anything new at this point.

[00:01:12]>> Bitcoin seems to be holding decent well despite all the troubles we've seen in the Middle East. Why do you think that happened?

[00:01:18]>> Well, I mean, Bitcoin already dropped 50% ahead of that. You know, if you look at what Bitcoin did before that, there was like this 50% drop before all that stuff happened. And and also note that even in 2022, we had kind of a large drop initially, almost the exact same, right? 52% uh and then this one was about 52%.

[00:01:38]Essentially the same level of a drop.

[00:01:41]And then back then, it was the uh Russia-Ukraine conflict really picking up. And you can see that Bitcoin, you know, did pretty well for a little while, but then it ultimately rolled over and kind of went into the final stages of the bear market. So, look, I mean, in the short term, it's hard to know exactly what's going to happen, but my guess, unfortunately, is that the bear market is unlikely to be over. And that that doesn't mean that the Bitcoin can't go higher. I mean, it it could, right? I'm not going to pretend like I know exactly where the the high is going to be, but a lot of times Bitcoin gets these rallies, and I think one of the things that that keeps me more so in the in the bear camp for now is looking at sort of looking at the market and seeing that it's kind of doing what it's done in prior midterm years, but then also, you know, if you hear if you look at 2026, this is the sort of this orangeish red line, it kind of lines up with 2018 in terms of like when the lows are occurring. You can see that Bitcoin in 2018, Trump was president back then as well, you had a low in February, a higher low in April, and then kind of this rally into May, and then we came back down as the year went on. And so, it kind of seems like maybe we're we're repeating that that type of structure.

[00:02:57]But, the counterpoint, which would still eventually still be bearish, would be if you compare this move to 2019, which I think is relevant considering we topped on apathy rather than euphoria. If you do that, you can see we're also tracking that pretty closely. Now, I'm not saying we're going to have a pandemic-induced recession, but I do think there's going to be some macro headwinds over the next few months. We're already seeing inflation come in hot. Normally, the labor market shows a little bit of weakness going into the summer, you'll see initial claims head higher. If you think back to 2023 and 2024, it was over the summer where Bitcoin was kind of weak after a rally sort of in the in the beginning of the year. So, my guess is that the sort of the status quo remains unchanged. We likely will see Bitcoin go lower, and probably one of the more convincing charts for me is this chart.

[00:03:43]It's just looking at the ROI of Bitcoin from the low to the high, and you can see that Bitcoin topped on day 1,062 this cycle, and the cycle for that it topped on day 1,059. Cycle for that, it topped on day 1,068. So, Bitcoin essentially topped within 1 week of when it historically tops. So, if that played out, then it makes me think the next low will occur around a similar time. And if you kind of just extrapolate this out as to when that would be, it would put it, you know, sometime around the month of of October. So, you know, I still think there's there's going to be some macro headwinds.

[00:04:19]I'm not saying people need to go short the market or anything like that. I mean, that's a great way to lose money.

[00:04:24]But, I I do think that we will likely see Bitcoin drift back down as the year goes on. Are you still expecting a scenario where as long as we're not taking off the all-time high? Because we've seen in previous cycles, we've gone near, we just still be on the camp of the four-year cycles per se. You know, in 2018 when Bitcoin went down to 6K, then rallied up to, you know, over 9,000, almost 10,000. In 2019 when it went to 6K, you can see it rallied up to around 10,000. So, like it's not impossible to see Bitcoin go back into the '90s or even maybe hit 100. But, it's also really hard to know because the other thing that would sort of lend the idea of it not going much higher is that oftentimes in bear markets, Bitcoin finds resistance at the 200-day moving average. Um like you can see that in in 2018, Bitcoin found resistance at the 200-day moving average in May. And in 2022, it found resistance at the 200-day moving average in March. And that's where we are right now. Now, in 2014, we did get past the 200-day moving average, but only barely. Like it wasn't really that much past it. So, I don't I don't really know that that was that different than than kind of what we've seen. So, it's a hard market right now because like there's definitely reasons you could see Bitcoin kind of hold on for a little bit longer. But, I would argue that the most likely outcome eventually, and I would say before the end of October, the most likely outcome is that Bitcoin drifts back down and we kind of come back down and you know, sort of test these prior lows at 60k and I would say there's a good chance we'll go below 60. We'll have to wait and see.

[00:06:01]Right now I'm mostly in the time-based capitulation camp, right? Like I think we need to give it towards October before I really start to think the market might turn around. But between now and then I I I think it it still makes sense to be in the bear camp, but also recognize that there can be tactical rallies within the bear markets. And as I've often said, right?

[00:06:20]Bear markets make fools of both bulls and bears. You know, if you're bearish in a bear market, you might think that you're on, you know, the side that always feels the best, but actually that's not true. Often times in bear markets, Bitcoin spends more time going up than going down. It's just that when Bitcoin goes down, it goes down fairly quickly. It'll trend up for months and then very aggressively go down. And and that's what makes bear markets so hard is because like you can look at it and be like, "Yeah, like it makes sense that we're in a bear market." But every single day the market just keeps trending up, it gets people to capitulate back in, and then eventually we get another drop, you know, to the downside. So, it's a it's emotionally draining, and for me the best course of action in midterm years is just investing in other asset classes rather than focusing too much on Bitcoin, at least until the end of the year.

[00:07:06]Elevator down and stairs up.

[00:07:09]>> [laughter] >> So, Yeah, I mean, that's what it is.

[00:07:11]Definitely faster on the way down. We touched on last time I had you on the channel for me, it's irrelevant cuz I I buy on a monthly base, no matter what.

[00:07:18]But I know a lot of people they plan to increase and/or decrease the DCA based on some indicators. For example, when we are in the bear market, they double down on the DCA. When we are, let's say, more happily into the bull market, they kind of chop the DCA in half. Would you say it's logic still to continue to DCA? I think there's a lot of validity to the idea of like, you know, buying more when there's a lot of fear and then buying less when there's a lot of euphoria. I mean, absolutely I think that makes sense. For me, I I think that, you know, the opportunity cost is high in the midterm years. Like, Bitcoin always bleeds to energy in midterm years. It always bleeds to gold. It always bleeds to the stock market, like the S&P. It just tends to bleed to a lot of things in midterm years, which is why I just elect to kind of ignore Bitcoin, at least for the first half of the midterm year, and then I start to look for good deals in the second half of the midterm year. But, it's just so hard because, you know, the first year the first half of midterm years is so volatile that it it the market's constantly convincing you that the bear market's over, and then inevitably by the second half, you see Bitcoin go down. And, you know, I and I've gone through that many times, right? In 2014, 2018, and 2022. In 2018, I thought 6K was the bottom because we had held 6K for months. I mean, it felt like we had I mean, we held 6K from February all the way until November, right? I mean, and now I mean, right now it's 60K, right? So far from February until May, but I thought there was a good chance back in 2018 that 6K might be the bottom, and then it wasn't, you know? And and it's okay to DCA assets that you want to own long term as long as you can weather the storms, absolutely. But, in sort of the midterm years, as early on as we've been, I tend to focus on other asset classes, like metals, energy, manufacturing, international index funds, emerging markets. That that's more so where the bull markets have been, not as much in the crypto space, unfortunately, right? And again, I don't I don't control the market. If if it were up to me, you know, Bitcoin would would go back into a bull market, but I just I think that's an unlikely scenario this year. I think in terms of your risk-adjusted returns, Bitcoin becomes a lot more attractive at the end of the year. I mean, what would have to happen for you to go, "Ooh, okay, I'm interested again." I'd say Q4 is probably where I would start to get interested again. Not to say that it can't happen before that. It it certainly could, but I I would say Q4 seems like the right time. And I mean, we we were talking some in Dubai uh back in, I guess what was this, December? We were we were talking and one of the things that was kind of fascinating is how Bitcoin topped in October in Q4 in the post-halving year when it always tops.

[00:09:46]And and so like I keep thinking, well, if it if Bitcoin tops when it always tops, maybe it'll just bottom when it always bottoms. And historically, late part of the midterm year is is when it bottoms. And so, I don't know what the narrative's going to be around the time as to like why it's going down. I don't know if it's going to be due to the macro, like inflation's going out, maybe the labor market looks a little weak, maybe it's due to fears about what Saylor's going to do with his Bitcoin. I don't know what it's going to be, but I also don't care. I I I think that price leads narrative, right? So, narrative follows price in this case, and so it's important to remember that whatever the narrative is, to try to just stick to the cyclical nature of Bitcoin until until proven otherwise. I mean, while the labor market has looked bad for a long time, it's okay right now. Like initial claims are low, layoffs are low, and until that change until that changes, I think it probably makes sense to just assume the four-year cycle's intact. Alessio Rastani on my show a couple of times, and he said, "Price uber alles." Which in German means price above everything, right? So, I also share the same view. And do you think it's fair to say or argue that since Saylor and ETFs are buying so much, we could see a milder bear market? We could, but not necessarily because of Saylor and the ETFs. Like Bitcoin has seen milder bear markets every bear market so far. Like if we zoom out here and look at at all of Bitcoin's bear markets, what you'll notice is that, you know, your first major bear market was about a 94% drop, and then the second one was about 87. The next one after that was about 84, 83. The one after that was about 77. So, we're already seeing that. Maybe you could blame the ETFs or Saylor, but I don't really think that has that much bearing on it. I think that this is just the natural evolution of Bitcoin. The other thing as well is that despite the fact that we had Sailor buying a lot in late 2025 and despite the fact that we had the ETFs, it still didn't stop Bitcoin from dropping 50%. So, like the same narratives that people might give for why we wouldn't continue a bear market, would have been the same narrative they would have said back in Q4 as to why we wouldn't go into a bear market in the first place. So, I I don't put a lot of credence into those narratives just because again, like all those narratives could have been recycled. And by the way, we've had Sailor buying a ton, we've had ETFs, and yet Bitcoin didn't even go up 2x from the prior high in 2021. And one of the reasons I think for that is because there's just been a really a relatively lack There There hasn't been as much retail interest this cycle. You know, it's been mostly institutional driven.

[00:12:19]It's just led to kind of lackluster returns. And And And by the way, I mean, Bitcoin got some of the best returns. I mean, Bitcoin outperformed most things this past cycle. I mean, it outperformed the S&P 500, it outperformed the Nasdaq, it outperformed gold even even though like it's down against gold, but in the in the last cycle for Bitcoin, it outperformed gold. It outperformed most altcoins. You know, I mean, Bitcoin still was not a bad investment. It's It's just that it's, you know, it's if you want to recognize the cyclical nature of it, just recognize it tops in Q4 and then kind of goes down after that for a little while. When you look into X or Crypto Twitter, whatever you want to call it, it seems like there is a division of people saying, "Well, the data of the four-year cycle is not enough." And but that's what we have so far. Yeah, I mean, look, at some point the four-year cycle will likely break, right? Like I'm not under the illusion it'll hold forever, but we we've also seen four-year cycles throughout history, right? It's not just Bitcoin.

[00:13:12]If you look at the stock market, you can see how it would bottom approximately every four years as well. Here's like 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, right? Like the market likes to bottom approximately every 4 years. And when it's not bottoming every 4 years, it's usually because of some major change, you know, some macro event that causes things to play out in a different way. Like for instance, the financial crisis is a good example of of the market bottoming kind of in a time when it doesn't normally bottom, right? Back then, the market bottomed at the very beginning of the post-election year, which is not a very normal time. And by the way, even the dot com crash bottomed in the midterm year, right? In 2002. And even recently, right? I mean, if you exclude the pandemic, you had a low at the end of 2018, you had a low sort of near the end of 2014, you had a low near the end of 2022. So, like it it just kind of lines up that every 4 years or so, you see a lot of weakness in the markets. And in order to get lows outside of that, like we got in 2020, like we got in 2028, 2029, you have to have some type of large global recession or something like that, which can then disrupt things. But as long as we don't have a global recession, which is not where we are right now, then I I think you just argue that the 4-year cycle remains intact, you know? I would say if the 4-year cycle is going to break, it's probably more like I mean, this is my pessimistic side, right? But if it's going to break, it's probably more likely to break to the downside than the upside. Meaning, if in the next cycle we have a global recession, then it could break, but not because not for the reasons that people wanted it to break, right? People want it to break because Bitcoin's going up. Usually, when when this stuff breaks, not always, but a lot of times when this stuff breaks, it's because the market is going down a lot, right? And and actually, in 2006, we didn't really have a major low in the midterm year. But I think the argument for why it broke and why it kind of went up that year was because we had gone down for 2 and 1/2 years, you know? Like it completely annihilated everyone. So, I don't think the 4-year cycle is broken. I want to be clear. I I think that we will likely see Bitcoin find a low later this year, and I think that low will correspond to weakness in the stock market. So, if you if you look at the last time Trump was president in a midterm [clears throat] year, you had a correction early in the year, and then you had another correction later in the year.

[00:15:41]So, and it was the second correction that then caused Bitcoin to break below $6,000 back then. It was the second correction, but back then the stock market didn't start correcting until September. So, the same thing's kind of playing out potentially where you have your first correction in the early part of the year, and my guess is that we have another correction in the back half of the year, and then that correction will correspond to to Bitcoin going back down, and then likely putting in its market cycle low, probably in October, but I would say, you know, it doesn't have to be October. I think October is my it's the most likely guess. But I I would say it could be plus or minus a month or two, and and then from there, hopefully Bitcoin can then build a base, and and then sort of work into into a new bull market. There is a little gravity at 48, which was when the ETF have been launched. Could you see a scenario where we could potentially retest the 48 and go a little bit lower 59?

[00:16:34]>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think we likely will eventually go back down there. I mean, if you think about thematic ETFs, they they when they launch, they usually launch near the end of bull markets, and so and and oftentimes you you will retest those levels. In fact, when the QQQ Q launched in 1999, right, like the tech stock, the tech boom, you can see the QQQ launched, and then eventually we retested that level.

[00:16:58]And we actually eventually went lower due to a recession. So, it's not like it's impossible for for Bitcoin to go back to 48K ever. In fact, one of the one of the interesting things is when you look at the balance price and the realized price of Bitcoin, historically Bitcoin goes below both of them in bear markets, right? You can see that it happened in 2011, in 2014, 2015, and 2018, even in 2020, we went below both of them in the in that recession, and also in 2022. And right now, the realized price is 54K. So, I mean, if the realized price is at 54K, and historically we go below that, I don't see why we couldn't go into the 40s. The other thing is we also normally go below the realized price or sorry, below the balanced price as well, right?

[00:17:46]Like this yellow orange line. We normally go below that, and that's currently actually below 40K. That's at 39K. You know, that that's a lot further down than where we are. And if it if we did see that, it would be very much mimicking kind of how it played out in 2018, and also how it played out in 2019, where you hold 6K for a while, but then eventually the low is actually in the 3K range. So, I almost wonder if the most likely outcome is to find a low between say, and I know this sounds kind of scary, but I I almost wonder if it's to find a low between 30 and 40, and then that ends up being the low. Because imagine that, if we if you go all the way down to 30 to 40K, it's going to be really scary in that environment. And and I imagine if we go to that level, a lot of people would then start calling for 10K and and and for Bitcoin to go to zero. But, the reality is, if Bitcoin were to drop, let's say Bitcoin were to drop to 40K, okay? That is about a 68% drop from the high. You would still have diminishing losses, right? So, your argument, the narrative that you said could still be theoretically could still theoretically have legs that, you know, maybe it is the ETFs and Saylor that keep the bear market from being as bad.

[00:18:55]The reality is, if we only have a 68% drop, that is still the best bear market we've ever had, right? In terms of the drawdown. That's the best bear market we've ever had. If it doesn't even drop 70%. So, for me, I I look at this and say, "Look, I mean, this is a completely normal drop for Bitcoin. You know, if it were to drop about 70% and I have to imagine it would feel quite scary in that environment, but that might actually be a great a great buying opportunity, especially if you believe in the four-year cycle. So, look, I don't know for sure if it's going to go to those prices, but I can assure you that I will be a buyer at those prices if we go there.

[00:19:34]>> You mentioned in one of your videos that the bottom could have been May. Do you think it's kind of off the table? It is possible. The The reason I said May is if you look at the four-year cycle sort of for the S&P, it often bottoms in October, even in 2022. If you think about when the S&P bottomed, it was October, actually. And if you go look at sort of the a lot of the prior four-year cycle lows, you can see this was October of '66, October of '74, but the one in in 1970 occurred actually in May. And so the sort of the argument and it sort of swept that prior low. So, when I was thinking about Bitcoin back in in January, February, I was like, look guys, it could be May if we end up sort of sweeping a major low around that time and there's not a countertrend rally.

[00:20:14]But because we've had a countertrend rally, it makes it a little bit less likely for it to be May. Like if if Bitcoin, instead of doing what it did here, if it just like went like straight down, something like this, then that could have easily been the bottom.

[00:20:28]Right? Like imagine if the S&P 500 had immediately swept the the April low, right? Like so imagine if it had if the S&P in the drop that it was getting, if instead of bouncing, it actually came all the way down here.

[00:20:42]By May, then absolutely that could have been the low. But I think the scary thing right now is that S&P M2 correlation that I've been talking about for the last like few years. And And the reason why this is kind of scary a kind of a scary pattern is because if it plays out, it would mean the four-year cycle would likely break. And I again, I'm hoping it doesn't. I'll I'll let me show let me convince you why it's going to play out and then and then convince you why it might not. So, if you look at at how this played out in the late '90s, you know, and you kind of overlay it to today, it's almost a carbon copy, right?

[00:21:13]Like every single correction that we had throughout this entire bull market is essentially how it played out in the dot-com era. And if it does continue to play out, it means that the top for the S&P would likely be in like September or something, and then you would have a big drop here into October. The reason why this is scary is because imagine the S&P drops into October and it forms this low, everyone loads up on Bitcoin, and then finally you get a recession that lasts for like 2 years. That would be absolutely brutal, you know? And the reason why I think it's unlikely to to play out like that is because when you look at I'm not saying we won't have a bear market, I'm not saying we won't have a recession. I think we will have a recession at the end of the business cycle, but that doesn't mean it has to start immediately, you know? There could still be room for Bitcoin to have a bull market in the next bull cycle before you have a recession. It's hard to know right now, but when when you look at this chart, you know, if you look at the S&P divided by gold, this is not really dot-com-esque because when you look at the the dot-com era, the S&P valuation against gold was at like 5.5.

[00:22:18]Today it's at like 1.5, you know? It's not like the same type of bubble. There are a lot of companies today that are all actually making money. It's not you know, it's not like this isn't pets.com where where you know, a lot of the companies aren't actually making any money. With that said, I mean these are levels historically where you do start to see gold continue to outperform the stock market. So, look, I think having a well-diversified portfolio can make a lot of sense. Like not I mean not just having Bitcoin, obviously, but having exposure to metals like gold. I think gold's going to still do well. Having exposure to international index funds, emerging markets, energy. By the way, if we do go into a recession, energy stocks normally top long after the stock market does. So, I think there's ways to still navigate this market even if you are a believer in a recession coming, but you can still make money in a late business cycle environment. You just have to realize that once the top for the S&P is in, then the top for the energy market will likely come within the next year or so. But, it can be it can take a year potentially for energy to top out after after the S&P has. I know that sounds crazy, but if you look back to if you look back to the dot-com era, the S&P topped in March of 2000, but the energy sector didn't didn't top until like May of 2001. You know, like energy kept going up. And if you look at the financial crisis, the S&P topped in October 2007, energy kept going up until May of 2008, uh maybe even June of 2008. But, there's still ways to make money. Like, you don't just have to if you if you do believe Bitcoin's going to go down, you know, you don't just have to sit here and twiddle your thumbs waiting for it to happen. Like, you can still make money in other parts of the market. And then if you make more money in other parts of the market, then maybe that's more money you have to then buy Bitcoin when Bitcoin becomes attractive again. So, it's it's all about respecting the cycle, not marrying a single asset class, right? Like, I like Bitcoin, you like Bitcoin, but we're also both smart enough to know that Bitcoin goes through bear markets. And when it goes through bear markets, I I want to you know, I want to be more diversified. I don't want to just have everything in Bitcoin.

[00:24:15]I don't ever have everything in Bitcoin, but I want to be more diversified in Bitcoin bear markets so that I have more cash to eventually buy more Bitcoin. So, that's where I am. And I like I know I have a lot of controversial views on Bitcoin and people just want to see it go up, but you know, I it's an asset like everything else and it'll have bull markets and it'll have bear markets.

[00:24:31]>> I also would like for the four-year cycles to be destroyed. And I think if there is a chance, maybe this ETF institution cycles, or whatever you want to call it, might have an impact on it.

[00:24:40]But, it's fair to assume that based on what we've seen so far, it's logic to project something alongside those trajectories, right?

[00:24:48]>> Bitcoin went from 15K to 126K and retail never came back, right? So, I don't think I mean, if Bitcoin can go up 8X and it's not going to bring retail back, then I don't think dropping 70% is going to bring them back. I think the reason retail is not here is for two reasons.

[00:25:04]The first reason is because of the macro. The macro is really unfavorable.

[00:25:09]You know, the labor market, you know, there's not a lot of layoffs, but it's hard to find a job. People aren't really quitting their job. There's not a lot of job openings. Inflation continues to eat at our, you know, our our money. It's almost like you have to be invested just to just to try to keep up with inflation. You just have to try to choose the right things. I I think the macro is is really hard right now and and gas prices going up is not going to help anything, you know, it's just going to slowly drain the consumer more and more and more. And and that's a hallmark of a late business cycle environment where you have oil spiking and then that causes kind of the crisis. But again, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes like a long period of time of higher higher prices at the pump. That's when the consumer really starts to feel it, right? They're not going to feel it after a a month necessarily, but you go 6 months like this, 12 months like this, that's when you'll really start to notice it. So, I think the macro is unfavorable. I I also think monetary policy, too, has been unfavorable for crypto. You've had higher interest rates. You've had, you know, I know we're not in quantitative tightening right now, but we were in quantitative tightening for a long time. Until you get much looser monetary policy, until you get much lower rates, it's hard to imagine the industry as a whole is going to have a a major bull run. The problem is in order to get all that stuff, you almost have to have a crisis to get there. That's why it makes the asset class a difficult investment, especially the altcoin market. I mean, there's Bitcoin and there's altcoins, especially the altcoin market because the only way the altcoin market is ever going to feel some revival is with much looser monetary policy, but the problem is you can't get much looser monetary policy until you have a crisis. If you know that looser monetary policy is predicated on crisis, then there's not really a great reason to own altcoins until you have that crisis because in the crisis they would also likely go down. I think if you're going to buy anything in crypto, you just buy Bitcoin. And if and when there is a drop, Bitcoin likely will not drop as much as the rest of the market. And and then from that point, you might have better luck in in some of the riskier things. But you know, I I think for now, I I don't really see retail coming back.

[00:27:08]And when we track the social, you can see the retail never came back this past cycle, right? And it is orange line just continues to drop. And if you actually look at at YouTube views for a lot of these different crypto YouTube channels, it takes a little while to load. You can see that like back in 2021, we were averaging 3 to 4 million views a day.

[00:27:25]Not my channel specifically, but like all these channels that we have down here. Today, they're averaging, you know, 500, 600, 700,000. You know, occasionally you'll see a spike, but then it's relatively short-lived, you know, and it just kind of comes back down. And it's not just YouTube. Like if you look at Twitter as well, like you can look at Twitter followers to various analysts on Twitter or X, but for me it's Twitter, it'll always be Twitter.

[00:27:46]You can see the retail never came back, right? Like it it it looks nothing like 2021. And it's not just people following analysts, because you could say, "Well, maybe people don't follow those analysts because they just suck at being analysts, and there's only so many times that, you know, someone can say that all season's going to happen before their their audience starts ignoring them."

[00:28:02]But you can see the same thing with the if you like at like layer ones, like Twitter followers to layer ones, you know, it looks nothing like 2021.

[00:28:09]Twitter followers to various crypto exchanges, you know, it looks nothing like it did in 2021. So again, there's just not a lot of of interest right now.

[00:28:17]We also have some other charts as well.

[00:28:19]Like if you look at like Wikipedia page views. I know a lot of people aren't going to Wikipedia to figure out what Bitcoin's doing, but like look at what it did in 2017, look at what it did in 2021, and then how it basically did nothing. And part of that could be due to AI. Like maybe people are just using AI instead of, you know, using Google to get to Wikipedia or whatever. But still, like it it there's just nothing, you know, there's just nothing. There's also other like sentiment metrics as well.

[00:28:41]Like here's like a crypto asset weighted sentiment chart, and it just shows you it's it's declining since 2021 as well.

[00:28:47]You can also see the advanced decline index of the top 100 cryptocurrencies has also just been declining since 2021.

[00:28:54]So, the the bull market that we had was mainly just due to Bitcoin going up. It wasn't because of altcoins going up. A lot of altcoins might go up when Bitcoin was going up, but then they would just go back down and put in a new low. And then Bitcoin go up again, the altcoin go back up. Basically, if I could draw it out to show you what was happening with altcoins, imagine so Bitcoin was kind of doing this, right? In the bull market.

[00:29:12]Altcoins, a lot of the altcoins were doing something like this. They would go up, but then kind of come back down. And they would, you know, do something like this where they weren't really making a whole lot of progress. And now some of the altcoins would go up for a year or two, but then they would just kind of give back the gains. And then other altcoins would just do something like this. So, the altcoin market essentially did this while Bitcoin went up. So, then by the time that Bitcoin rolled into the bear market, altcoins got annihilated on October 10th of last year cuz that was 4 days after the bull market was over when Bitcoin entered the bear market. It exposed the weakness that had already been in the altcoin market. It's just the altcoin market didn't appear weak because Bitcoin had gone up. But, if you looked at the valuation of altcoins against Bitcoin, right? They were just bleeding, right? Like alts alts were bleeding against Bitcoin for years, right? For years since 2021. They were just going down against Bitcoin. So, the weakness was always there. It just took Bitcoin entering into a bull market to expose it. And so, that the reason why that relates to your question is because when retail comes back, they tend to not even buy Bitcoin. They tend to go buy altcoins. But, the reality is that they never came back and that's why altcoins just continue to bleed out to Bitcoin and the why they're likely continue to bleed out to Bitcoin. Yeah, exactly. By the way, guys, not your altcoins, right?

[00:30:24]>> [laughter] >> I mean, I'm not talking about your altcoins. It's someone else's. Exactly.

[00:30:29]>> never have the audacity to talk negatively about their altcoins. I wonder if there's a component of maybe Saylor offering stretch products like and people are saying, well, why do I gamble with my money but say like do I give Saylor my money so I have 11.5% a year or I buy a random altcoin. So maybe some of those will go back into a different vehicle. By the way, I agree with you. I don't think anyone is coming back if we see a massive crash. Weirdly enough, I believe if Bitcoin goes to $200,000, some will FOMO back in.

[00:30:57]Usually price going up is an indicator of people FOMOing into things. If anything, a price pump will make people coming back to a degree. Right. And you could have a like I'm I mean you could have a price pump at any time, but it Imagine if you dropped to 40k. Let's just imagine. And then Bitcoin goes to 200k or something. That might bring retail back. But I don't think Bitcoin going to 40k would bring them back. And again, retail not coming back doesn't mean that Bitcoin has to then go below 40k or below 30k. Like it could bottom in that area without retail coming back.

[00:31:26]I mean the other the the other sort of obvious thing with retail not being here is if you don't have retail here, they're also not panic selling potentially and causing prices to go lower. So price drop won't bring retail back, but if you had a big price drop and then a big rally, that could then bring retail back. But I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think retail is going to durably come back until you start to see much looser monetary policy and I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. So we've seen a bit of a correction, a bit of a pump, and we are now in this kind of middle of nowhere. And it's not exciting enough to say, "Hey, maybe maybe the four-year cycles are broken because we've gone over certain levels." We haven't gone down that much either. So we are kind of in this purgatory place which feels like we have to stay in there for a few more months. So weirdly, I actually think this is the most difficult part to be in the bear market.

[00:32:09]Yeah, because it's like a tug-of-war between the bulls and the bears, right?

[00:32:11]Like there's reasons to be bullish, there's reasons to be bearish. The reasons to be bullish are like, well, maybe it's like 2019 where you just dropped 50% and then you rally. And imagine what we would have done in 2019 if we had not had the or 2020 if we had not had the pandemic, right? Like maybe we wouldn't have had the crash, maybe we would have just continued to rally. But the bears also have a point, right? And the point is is that mid-term years are normally bearish. So that that's why I think like if the low is in, which which not my base case, but if it is, I think we'll at least revisit it later this year in terms of like a double bottom.

[00:32:41]And because even in 2019, you know, we actually tagged 66,000 a couple of a few times. And then 2018, we tagged it a few times. Like imagine it's like 2018, but instead of instead of going down to 3K at the end of the year, it just found support at 6K and then went up, right? Maybe that's how it plays out, but if that's how it plays out, you still probably will test 6K for a number of times before, you know, it becomes obvious that perhaps that could be the low. So, I think there's just going to be a tug of war for the rest of the year between the bulls and the bears. And then next year, as long as we don't immediately go into a recession, then I think that there would be a good reason to have, you know, sort of a fresh bull case and there'll probably be more bulls than bears. Ben, thank you so much, Ben. Always appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks for having me. I'll see you soon. Bye. Ciao.