Bankless - Ben Cowen: Ethereum Season Is Here | How Far Can ETH Go?

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Ethereum has flipped the switch. After years of underperformance, ETH is showing decisive momentum, not just in USD terms, but against Bitcoin and the broader altcoin market. In this episode, Ben Cowen returns to break down what’s changed, why ETH may be on a path to new all-time highs, and what its dominance means for the rest of the cycle. We explore ETH’s regression bounce, ETHBTC targets, the fading strength of altcoins, and how market narratives tend to follow price, not the other way around. Ben also lays out his roadmap for the coming months and shares why this phase might be “Ethereum season,” not just in name, but in structure. For anyone navigating crypto in 2024–2025, this is essential context. ------ 📣 INTO THE CRYPTOVERSE | GET 10% OFF https://intothecryptoverse.com/ref/bankless/ ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 3:40 ETH Coming Home 14:13 Why ETH Outperforms Now 18:51 What ETH Season Actually Looks Like 24:48 ETHBTC Targets & USD Projections 29:25 Price First, Narrative Later 32:27 Bitcoin Risks & the Flippening Hypothetical 36:17 Ben’s Market Timeline 43:36 ETH Treasury Narrative Flip 48:11 Where’s the Alt Season? ------ RESOURCES Ben Cowen https://x.com/intocryptoverse Ben’s Channel https://www.youtube.com/@intothecryptoverse Into The Cryptoverse https://intothecryptoverse.com/ ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

If alts are down 44% against Ethereum since April, what else do you call it other than Ethereum season, right? I mean, basically everything in crypto, including Bitcoin, since April has been bleeding to Ethereum. But the current time, Ethereum's giving better risk-adjusted returns than altcoins. Because by being an Ethereum, it's basically giving you the upside that an alt-coin might get, but it's also protecting you from the downside risk. Bankless Nation, we got Ben Cowan back on the podcast today.

We had him on a year ago to talk about, the downtrend of ETHBTC. Six months later, also six months ago, we had been back on to talk about how ETHBT was about to go home. And then today, I think we are here to complete that journey to talk about the rise of ETHBTC and where Ben thinks it's going after it went home. Ben, welcome back to Banquist. Thanks, Sean, me here.

It's been a pretty crazy journey for Ethereum over the last few years. Yeah, okay, so you are famous for calling for ETH to go home. You said it for years. First, ETH was going home. And then I think you'll agree. Ethan went home, which I think now begs the question, now that Eith has gone home, if you do think that it has completed his journey home,

where is Eth going now that it's gone home? So my base case now is that it's on its journey to all-time highs. I feel satisfied, right, with it having gone home. That was kind of why I was always kind of like against the idea of Ethereum breaking the new highs in prior years. and one of the things we have to obviously talk about, right, is the, because

ETH went home, it allowed, in my opinion, it allowed ETH Bitcoin to bottom, right? And that's like, that's the bigger story, right? Because I mean, ETHUSD going up is great, right? We all love to see ETHUSD go up, but if it's lagging Bitcoin, then that's like a problem

and it kind of signifies that it doesn't truly have momentum behind it if it's just lagging Bitcoin. But if ETHBet Bitcoin is going up while ETH is going up, then it shows you where a lot of that momentum is. So like, just briefly, if you see my screen here, you know, this is the ETH UST chart. I was basically operating under the assumption that Eith Bitcoin would not bottom until it went to its regression line, right?

Like until it actually dropped down. And it kind of felt like the missing piece to me for like a long time this cycle, was that like, all right, we need to have Bitcoin go down during a time when it normally doesn't. And it went down in early 2025. And so when it ended up happening is it allowed ETH to break down here below this sort of this trendline. And the same things happened in the last couple of cycles actually, right? There's been like similar trend lines. And whenever it breaks down from that trend line, each cycle, that's when ETH Bitcoin

bottoms, right? every single cycle, right? 2016, you can see Eith Bitcoin bottomed right there when I went to the regression line. And then the next cycle, 2019, it bottomed here at the regression line. And it also had a double bottom a little bit later on. It did go lower into the regression ban. But then this time, to me, like it looks like it just bottomed here again after it went to the regression ban. So, yeah, I think that it's most likely on a path to all-time highs.

Doesn't mean it's going to be a straight shot there. If you, you know, a couple of weeks ago, Ethereum was moving a lot. and, you know, we saw things get a little bit euphoric, but I think right now we're just kind of cooling off or hopefully, hopefully a move up to all-time highs within the next, you know, a few months, hopefully sooner. So the U.S. dollar price of Eath has been higher in the not distant past,

and this happened after the all-time high price for ETH was like 4,800, 4,900 in 2021, end of 2021. And it's touched 4,100 at the start of 2024 in like March of 2024, it's touched 4,000, just again in December of 2024. So in terms of the dollar price, the Eth dollar price has been higher. But I think what you're saying is it touched 4,000 and above under a paradigm of Bitcoin strength and Bitcoin momentum.

And it wasn't able to capture new dollar highs. Ether wasn't able to capture new dollar highs because it was under a paradigm of Bitcoin momentum. And so I think what I'm interpreting you is like we needed Ether to bounce off of the Bitcoin ratio lows. in order for Ether to have the momentum in order to capture its all-time highs. So does that mean that this is a momentum-based move from Ether?

How would you categorize or classify the current paradigm that Ether the asset is in? I think there are a lot of holders that maybe didn't really believe in it. And you kind of saw a lot of people capitulating back in February, March, and April, which is, you know, that's around the time, like when it's dropping into its regression.

And that's when those people capitulate. So I kind of feel like the regression band itself kind of shows you like when it's down there then you've finally gotten rid of the people that are going to sell, you know, if price just doesn't go their way for, you know, some period of time, right? You know, they're not, they're, you know,

they're, what do they call? I mean, it retail is one of them, but they're like, you know, in sports, they call it sort of like a fair weather fan. So I, like, you turn it on when it's going up, but the minute it goes down, you're like, oh, I'll just going to sell it for something else. And, you know, everyone was sort of

dunking on Ethereum back then because it blood against Bitcoin for so long. But really, and we'll talk more about this, I'm sure, the all coin market doesn't, you know, doesn't really go up against Bitcoin itself until ETH Bitcoin bottoms, right? So I think that was what a lot of people miss that kept calling for all season. It's like, you can't really have all season if Eith Bitcoin keeps going down because Eith is arguably sort of the index for the altcoin market, right? Like I think it kind of exists somewhere between Bitcoin and all coins. And if you look at the last, again, if you look at the last couple of stuff,

cycles, when Ethereum made the rally to all-time highs over here in 2017, it was after Eith Bitcoin had bottomed, right? And then when it made the rally to all-time highs in 2021, again, it was after Eith Bitcoin had bottomed and, of course, after Ethereum, quote-unquote, went home. And so that's why, because I feel, I think, that Eith has bottomed against Bitcoin, I think there's a really high chance it has for this market cycle. I think it leaves open, it opens the door for new all-time highs, right? Like, obviously, nothing's a guarantee, but I think the most likely outcome is for Ethereum

to rally to all-time highs. And it's probably going, I mean, it should happen this year, if I had to guess. Again, it doesn't mean we can't consolidate for a bit, and we might have a little bit of trouble breaking above $4,800 on the first approach. But, you know, I think that because it's gone home,

the narrative has shifted. And also, by the way, it's not, it is going up against Bitcoin, right? A little bit, right? And maybe we can talk about where it might go. But what I think is the bigger underlying story here is that for a long time, people that were holding auctions were kind of dunking on Ethereum, right? They're like, you know, dunking on it, it wasn't really doing anything.

But now after ETH went to the regression ban, you're seeing the exact opposite. Look at this. So Eith went to the regression man in April, right? Now, I often talk about this chart, total three minus USCT about it by Bitcoin, right? This is the altcoin market against Bitcoin. But really a more interesting chart to me right now than this one is this same chart, but divided by ETH market cap. Because if you look at that, what you'll notice is that since April, since Ethereum went to its regression ban,

alts are down 44% against Ethereum. And I think that is going to continue to provide ETH with some liquidity, like momentum. Like if people are like, well, where is the money going to come from? I think a lot of it could just come from people converting their art coins back to Eith. Because at the end of the day, you know, in the cryptiverse, there's only a few assets that provide a lot of value, in my opinion, right? Like there's, you know, hundreds of thousands of coin. Most of them are absolutely worthless, right?

But I think that, you know, I think Ethereum has value. And I think that, you know, there was this nice rally by alts against ETH. But while they were rallying against ETH, they were bleeding against Bitcoin, right? So it's still, in my mind, they were going up against Eith. They're bleeding against Bitcoin. So it still made sense to hold Bitcoin. Now they're bleeding against Eith. So it seems like why go risk it in a lot of alt coins when two things.

First of all, they're bleeding against Ethereum. And it kind of reminds me a last cycle when I said, well, what if it bleeds against Ethereum, right? Like I think we're at that phase of the cycle where a lot of things are bleeding against Ethereum. And the other thing is while Ethereum arguably went home. And I think it's done, like, I think that it's going home for this cycle is done with. Like, I think it already fulfilled that.

Alt, on the other hand, I still think need to go a little bit lower on their Bitcoin pairs. And again, feel free to cut me off at any moment because I'll just ramble and ramble and ramble. I'm loving this so far. Yeah, I'm tracking. Yeah, but look at this. You see this Eith Bitcoin low right here and this pullback? So the low in April by Eith on its Bitcoin pair was, it was lower in April than in June, right? So June was a higher low.

But if you look at all coins, the June low was a lower low compared to where it was. So Ether found its strength. All coins did not find its strength. Exactly. So Ethereum found its strength because it went to where it needed to go. And maybe looking at it like this isn't the best way. Like look at, look at ETH dominance, right? Heath dominance went to the same spot.

It bottomed out last cycle, right? So you could argue that like ETH dominance went home. you could look at at the ETH Bitcoin market cap ratio and see here that it basically went to where it bottomed at around last cycle, right? So to me, that's where a lot of the strength is coming from. It's because it just went to where it needed to go to cleanse those people out. And now the momentum is shifted and the narrative is shifted. But the all-coin market, that narrative hasn't yet arrived, right?

And I don't think it is going to arrive. It might still happen. And I think there's still a chance you'll see ALTS do kind of what Ethereum's doing right now against Bitcoin. But I think it's a little bit further out, right? I think that right now we're sort of in the, let's call it the blue chip phase of the market cycle, right? Bitcoin and Ethereum, because those are the only two blue chips. There's only two coins that I consider blue chips. Obviously, a lot of people would disagree.

But when you look at the last two market cycles for Bitcoin dominance plus Ethereum dominance, And I think this might be a better thing to track now than just Bitcoin dominance. Because if Eth Bitcoin has bottomed, then ETH dominance likely goes up, right? And so that'll start to detract a little bit from Bitcoin dominance, but you could still see Bitcoin dominance go higher

if altcoins continue to bleed against Bitcoin, even if Eth goes up. So what I'm looking at right now is this Bitcoin dominance plus Ethereum dominance chart that two cycles ago topped at 85%, at least the history we have. And then last slide, Michael topped about 85%.

And I'm just wondering, like, it's now, right now it's at 73%. And it might sound crazy, right? It might sound crazy, but like, you know, what if Bitcoin dominance rallies back to 66% at some point? And what if during that same time, you see a rally by ETH dominance as well? Or maybe they don't happen at the same exact time, right?

Like maybe ETH dominance rallies for one month and Bitcoin dominance. And then they collectively go higher. And it just feels like the Alkoyne market is dead. and then by that point, you might actually get all Bitcoin pairs at the range lows. And then by that point, maybe they can get the move that Ethereum's getting right now. But in the short term, if I'm being honest, I think that all are going to keep bleeding against Ethereum. In the wild west of Defy, stability and innovation are everything, which is why you should check out Frax Finance.

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time and it is continuing to hold, you know, $115,000 plus $1,000, somewhere between $150,000 and $120,000. So Bitcoin is strong. Ether is getting its idiosyncratic move to the upside while alts are going down. And, you know, Bitcoin, Ether has been moving meaningfully versus Bitcoin from the lows of like 0.0.018 all the way to 0.032 still feels low in the grand scheme of things, but it's at least a doubling versus Bitcoin. To me, this is just what Ethereum season looks like. Ethereum has found its strength. It's not coming out of Bitcoin's strength. Bitcoin is maintaining its strength, but it's not more strong than Ether.

Ether has found its strength. It's gaining in market share and also continuing to bleed. To me, that is like, oh, this is Ethereum season. This is what ETH season looks like. And ETH season will continue for the foreseeable future while Al's fine there bottom. And ETH can make as much progress versus the Bitcoin ratio as it can while Bitcoin holds on to strength without actually gaining net new strength versus Ether.

That's kind of how I'm integrating everything. Any changes to that? That's my take. What do you think? I think you're right. I mean, I think it is sort of, I mean, if odds are down 44% against Ethereum since April, what else do you call it other than Ethereum season, right? I mean, basically everything in crypto, including Bitcoin since April has been bleeding to

Ethereum. Again, except for maybe a few select octones that I'm sure, you know, if we dug them up, we could probably find a few. But for the most part, they're all bleeding to Ethereum right now. My sort of take on it is that I think. that there's, so I think, so I think, alt coins could still kind of hold up against Bitcoin, probably for a few more weeks.

If you look at, you know, if you look at the alt Bitcoin chart again, one of the things you might notice is in 2017, we had a very similar rally by altcoins on their Bitcoin pairs around the same time, like the summer in 2017, summer at 2017. And they rallied until about like late August. But what you'll notice is that they then put in a lower low in late October,

right? So that's the key, I think. So in late October, altcoins put in a lower low against Bitcoin in 2017, which is what could take all Bitcoin pairs down here by late October, right? But when that happens, I think it will correspond to a pullback by Eith against Bitcoin, but it doesn't have to be like a massive pullback, right? I mean, it could just be kind of like what we got over here, where it goes up, consolidates a little bit, pulls back, scares everyone, and then just blasts higher again.

So I think that's what's probably going to happen. I think you're going to get a pullback by Eith Bitcoin. If I had to guess, I would say sometime around like September, October, but my base case is that it will form another higher low, right? And for all we know, that higher low could be higher than the price right now of Ethereum against Bitcoin, right? It doesn't have to mean, it doesn't mean it has to necessarily go back down in the 0.02s. But that's what I'm thinking, because I think you'll get, you had this bottom,

you had a move up and then a pullback, right? Now we're in another move up. And if it does sort of pull back September, October, it's going to take these alt coins, I think, down here. By that point, by that point, if alts go down here on their Bitcoin pairs, while Eiff Bitcoin puts in a higher low, that's when you might actually see a larger move up by alt Bitcoin pairs, right?

Like after they go to the range lows. But again, because that hasn't happened yet, and because, as you said, which I would agree with, it more so leans towards Ethereum season right now, and that's supported not just by your opinion or my opinion or our bias because we hold Ethereum. It's more so, guys, look, you can try to outperform Ethereum all you want,

but the reality is it's outperforming most of the rest of the market right now. So in my opinion, at the current time, and I mean, I've been saying it for months, right? At the current time, Ethereum's giving better risk-adjusted returns than all coins. because by being an Ethereum, it's basically giving you the upside that an altcoin might get, but it's also protecting you from the downside risk, right? Because if ETH Bitcoin does get a pullback in September, October, it's likely going to take those altcoins down to even lower lows on their Bitcoin pairs.

So, you know, I think if you're navigating crypto right now, I think a portfolio composition of, say, Bitcoin and Ethereum makes sense. Whereas before, I would have just said, hey, just stick with Bitcoin until Ethereum goes home, until ETH Bitcoin bottoms. So we firmly have momentum on the ETH side of the market. 0.032, the current Bitcoin ETH ratio, ETH Bitcoin ratio, is at least from my historical time in crypto, is a low number.

And so the momentum traders are on board ETH. A lot of people are on board ETH to ride the momentum wave. And I think a lot of people are asking it, like, okay, the Ethereum community is looking for it. Like, let's reestablish the highs of 2021. let's see 0.07, 0.08.09. Then, like, there, I think there are some momentum traders who are a little bit more moderate about, you know,

let's just get to mean reversion. Let's go 0.05, 0.06, call it good there. Where do you land on this kind of, like, destination until each season is over? When and where do you think each season is over if the charts tell you anything? I think in the short term, I'm leaning towards more of the moderate view,

because, I mean, like, I think the hard part is that if you do believe, and I think I even outlined this when I, when we talked about Ethereum, like back a year ago or six months ago when we talked about Ethereum going home, generally my outlook for Ethereum, and I think I even drew out this path on the interview I did with you,

it was down to home, then up to new all-time highs, right? Up to new all-time highs. And then back down into, say, like the 2026 bear market, right? So, and I'm operating under that assumption because of Bitcoin tends to go and do bear markets

in midterm years, right? But just because Bitcoin, if Bitcoin does go down, it doesn't mean that ETH Bitcoin has to go down the entire year, right? Like you could have an example where it goes down for part of the year, but then it starts to do better again because maybe by that point, the Fed's finally ending quantitative tightening. Maybe we're looking like lower interest rates. And I think I've actually talked to your audience about this before as well.

And one of the things I've noticed with Eith Bitcoin is that it's important to recognize both things. And one of those is that we've been putting in lower highs. from one cycle to another. Well, we've also been putting in higher lows from one cycle to another. And that's what I think I said this, was like, I really am hoping

that each puts in a higher low because it'll continue that pattern, right? It'll sort of continue the pattern that we've seen. So what I'm looking at, did it? It looks like it put in a same low. It wasn't a lower low. I don't know if it was a higher low.

It was a slightly higher low on its Bitcoin pair because the low is 209. It seems teasingly small in terms of how much higher it was. I know, but hey, being technically correct is the best way to be correct, right? I mean, technically speaking, the low in 2019 was 0.016 and then this low was 0.1.7. Oh, right. So, you know, I mean, it is what it is. So I think my view on the Ethereum Bitcoin valuation is it's kind of like converging to like whatever, you know, the fair value is.

So like it's doing something like that, right? Where like anytime it comes down here, people like freak out and say it's dead. And then any time it like comes up here, you know, people start calling. People talk about the flipping. The flipping. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's really just kind of slowly trying to find whatever that fair value is. And I can't say, you know, for sure.

But if you made me guess, like where at least kind, you don't remember like when when Bitcoin dominance was really low, I said like, all right, I think it's going to go to 60%. And then when it got to 60% and all Bitcoin pairs were still at 0.35, I didn't change it to 66% right? So I think I, the number about I want to say, like it's subject to revision if and when we hit it. But the number that I'm sort of looking at right now is about 0.053. And I would come to that conclusion by by two different, exit two different ways. The first way is say, look, 0.053 is where the Ethereum Bitcoin valuation, you know, held support for a long time. So I feel like we're going to find some resistance whenever we get back up to that level.

Again, it doesn't mean it can't ever break through it. It just means I think that is going to provide some resistance if and when that's hit. The other reason I would sort of look at at 0.053 as an area of interest is if you look at sort of like the fib retracement on last cycle, Eith Bitcoin, it rallied up to the 0.5, right? The 0.5 fib retracement, which was right here, right? That's where it ultimately topped out at. If you project that to this cycle and say, well, what if you do the same thing again, you know, you know, that 0.5 gets you right up to 0.053, right? That's the exact level that it would get you to. So, again, you know, I'm not saying that it can't break through that. What I'm saying is, look, what I think makes the most amount of sense right now is, I think it makes sense to be bullish on the E-F Bitcoin valuation.

If and when it hits 0.053, I think it's going to be time to sort of like reassess the market. kind of like look at, look at what the macro is doing, look at what alt coins are doing. Because one thing you and I both know is that if we reach a point in this cycle where octones are like, you know, screaming higher and like you do actually, if you do actually get an alt coin season, usually that is the end of the cycle, right? Like when that stuff starts going up. So really, you know, the longer that alts bleed to Ethereum, you know, it just kind of keeps things going, right?

It's when the froth of the Alkoyne market starts to rise. That's when Bitcoin goes to a correction. I don't really think Bitcoin needs to get a big correction just because Ethereum's going out. But if the Alkoyn market collectively goes up, that's usually what brings on that correction. So for in the short term, I'm looking for about 0.053. I think you're going to get one more correction before you get there, where you're going to get like a higher low.

And the only reason I say that is because I think there needs to be an event between now and late October that sends Altcoin. to their range lows on their Bitcoin pairs, even though I think it'll be a higher low for ETH on its Bitcoin. 0.053 Bitcoin, at the current price of, let's round up to $120,000 that puts Ether at $6,300, $600. But that's not assuming that Bitcoin stays at $120,000, correct? You think Bitcoin at least goes?

Yeah, I mean, it depends on where Bitcoin goes. But if you go over to the, so we have this like risk metric for Ethereum, right now it's kind of between 0.6 to, a 0.7 risk. So, I mean, it's a little hot right now, but it certainly could get hotter. Like, if it goes to say 0.7 risk, which is certainly feasible,

because this does, this risk metric accounts for diminishing returns, right? So it's already accounting for that. So 0.7 risk would put it at like 40, 4,200. 0.75 would put it at basically the prior all-time highs. 0.8, 5700. 0.85 would put it at around 6,700.

0.9 would put it at almost 8,000, right? 0.9. We'll put it almost 8,000. And you can see the big 10K would basically be kind of like, you know, pretty high risk. Like that's like, like if everything plays out perfectly from, you know, from now over the next few months, then there does exist a scenario where that happens. But I think there's going to be a lot of selling pressure up in the 0.9 to 1 risk span. And then I think you're going to get a big cool off period, or 0.8 to 1. And I don't think you're going to get a big cool off period in 2026 and then maybe then continue the party, you know, say like 2027, 2028, something like that.

So that's kind of what I'm leaning towards right now. And also there's two other things we had talked about before, like the butterfly effect video that I did, that would kind of put Ethereum somewhere between 5,700 and 7,500, which seems like it would match these risk metrics. And then also the last thing that I think I mentioned when we did that video was that S&P 500 fractal. I know people are going to like roll their eyes at this. That's okay. But, you know, I've followed it for a while now and it actually ended up proving quite useful. This is actually the more bullish way to look at it because if you look at it through this lens, it doesn't necessarily call for that 2026 pullback.

Like if you look at it through the other lens, so if you look at it through this lens and you sort of overlay that fractal by the S&P 500 in the 90s, it's almost the exact same chart where you have like, you know, that type. I mean, you can see how well it lines up, right? What's special about this section of the S&P chart from the 90s? Why it is section of all sections? Because, oh, I'll tell you why.

So the reason is, I'll have an answer for it. If you look at the U, was the U.S. interest rates minus the two-year yield. I think that's what it, let me make sure that's what it. Yeah. So if you look at interest rates minus the two-year yield, there's this trend line here, right? And we just tagged it for the third time in history, right? We tagged it in 2024. We tagged it during the financial crisis, and we tagged it in 1989, right? So in the financial crisis, obviously the markets fell apart. And I was trying to be optimistic and say, well, let's ignore this example because let's just hope the real estate market doesn't absolutely collapse and send us into a deep recession for the next

like several years. Let's look at the example before that where it hit this trend line and that happened to be the 1989 to 1990 business. That was the 1989, 1990 recession, right? We had a 20% drop. The stock market dropped 20% and then it got that rally and what we just saw the stock market drop 20% in April. And, you know, when you look at that was that was why I went and looked at it because I was looking at this chart trying to make sense of what was happening in. the markets. I was like, oh, let me go see what the S&P 500 did in 1980, 1990. I went and did that, and then I saw that fractal. I just overlaid it with Ethereum back in December. I mean, I think if you look at the last interview that I did, I showed everyone this fractal. And I was like,

this is why it's going to go home. It even got this pullback, right? Like this pullback that it lines up. And then it's just kind of screaming higher. So, you know, there's a chance that Ethereum just kind of slowly pushes its way up here. And again, this is the more bullish view, because it wouldn't call for necessarily a larger pullback in 2026. Like, you know, it's the more optimistic view. It's like, well, what if it just goes sideways in 2026 or something? But yeah, I mean, that's the more bullish view, I guess. Ben, so there's specific events that are happening right now.

And I guess there was also specific events that happened when Eith went home. That was the scare, the tariff scare of earlier this year. And so there was this real world event that you had no idea was happening. But nonetheless, you were like, okay, Ethereum's going to go home at some point in time. it was this tariff scare that did that, maybe coincidentally, maybe not. But right now, there is the ETH Treasury Company meta. And there's even today, at the time of recording on the 29th,

there's a brand new one that just announced like $450 million of ETH putting on this new brand new treasury company balance sheet. And it's like the seventh one over the last like two months. And that's this like uniquely Ethereum thing that you couldn't really have predicted just by looking the charts. But it's the thing that is coinciding with the ETH momentum. the ETH strength over Bitcoin. And this is the thing that, like, I think people are betting on has momentum moving forward.

How do you square these in real life occurrences, themes, like investment phases where, like, why is ETH having momentum? Well, because it's the ETH treasury events. But you would have said, oh, yeah, after Eith goes home, then ETH is going to have momentum. And you said that, you know, six months ago a year ago, before the word like treasury company was even uttered beyond just Michael Saylor. How do you square those two things? Well, I guess I would argue that like narrative follows price.

And, you know, it's always easy to sort of assign a narrative to a price movement. Because think about it, in 2024, in mid-20204, I was still calling for Ethereum to go home. But the narrative back then, like, let's say I had been wrong, right? Let's say in mid-20204, I was calling for Ethereum to go home. And let's just pretend like what ended up happening was maybe Ethereum shot up to $10,000. thousand dollars back that, right? The narrative back then would have been obvious. People would have just said, well, Ben's an idiot because he's ignoring the ETF, right?

The ETF launch in mid-20204. But that was the narrative back then, but because price didn't follow that narrative died, right? So I would argue that the narrative follows the price, right? So like if the price doesn't continue to go up, then there's this treasury company discussion, like that narrative will just quickly die. I don't think it's going to. and the reason I don't think that narrative will die is because I think Ethereum went low enough, right?

I think the ETH Bitcoin, I already think all that bad stuff that needed to happen. I think it already happened, so I don't think it needs to go through that. But that, but again, I mean, that's a great example because, you know, when the ETF was launched for Bitcoin, Bitcoin has done fine, you know, since then. But when it launched for Ethereum,

it ended up basically marking a local top for, like, what, the next year? So, again, I think that's a kind of example of narrative following price. and then when the price doesn't do what people think, then the narrative dies, and then they just look for the next narrative. Well, now, like, now, why is the theory of not going up? And then people are like, oh, it's because, you know, it's because of higher interest rates and quantitative tightening.

But had it gone up, the reason would have been it's because of the ETFs. What about things? Like, there are events in the future that are hypothesized as it comes to Bitcoin's future. Two main ones, one being the, you know, theoretical, unsafe end game of the Bitcoin security budget and then also quantum computing. Both theoretical problems,

but theoretical with strengths, right? Like we know quantum computing is a thing. We know quantum computing can, you know, with sufficient time, can access Bitcoins in dormant Bitcoin wallets. Theoretically, we know the Bitcoin security budget runs out and actually with the ETH Treasury companies, like four of them are Bitcoin miners

that are pivoting from being a Bitcoin mining security provider to an Ethereum treasury. company, which is the same thing as being an Ethereum security provider. So there's these theoretical future things that will happen to Bitcoin. That, like, you can't, I'm going to ascertain that you can't really see those in the charts today. But there are idiosyncratic events that, like, you know, no one really knows the true outcome of these things.

But, like, my case for, I don't like saying the F word anymore, so I'm not going to say it. But my case for, like, Ether taking the number one spot, if you're going to make that argument, you would likely invoke these things, these like, well, the Bitcoin security budget it runs out, the Ethereum, the quantum computing comes and make Bitcoin unsafe. And then therefore, naturally, you know, ETH, which its investments into the long-term future will take the number one spot. How would that ever show up in your charts? Or would that just be like this ineosyncratic move that's just completely unpredictable? Yeah, I don't think that would be a very predictable move.

Like, so if that were to ever happen, which I don't think, I mean, honestly, I don't think it will. But if it were to ever happen, I would probably be on the wrong side of that. Like, I'd probably be constantly saying it's not going to until my face gets off. It's being the F word? Right, the flippinging, right? Yeah, like I don't think I would ever say that's going to happen. I don't think that it will happen. You know, I know the sort of all the quantum computing risks and stuff.

And, you know, I remember people talking about that back in like 2017. And, you know, that's one of those things where it's like this constant fear. It's a boogeyman that's on the horizon. Right. It's never actually here. Right. And imagine if in 2017, you know, someone said, you know, watch out for quantum computing. And then imagine if you just were out of the crypto markets for the last eight years, right?

Like that wouldn't. Totally. Like, yeah, like it might happen in the future. But there's certain things that you just can't worry about. And if you do and if you do spend all your time worrying about it, you'll just, you'll never invest. Right. Like, you'll never invest. So I, yeah, I mean, it's quantum computing is a risk.

But I don't. I mean, I would say if that risk ever were to play out. my guess, look, I have a very, very, I think I'm going to differ on my view here than what you said, because I think that my view would be that if Bitcoin were to die, I think it would be very negative for the rest of crypto. I don't, I don't think there is a high probability outcome where, like, Bitcoin dies and then other cryptocurrencies take over. I think a lot of people would just lose confidence in the asset class if that were to happen. Yeah, I would agree with that. depending on the nature of how it dies, right?

If it's like a, you know, straight line to zero, and like the Bitcoin blockchain truly stops functioning, I both think that's unlikely and also would be very negative for crypto. I think there would just be like, it would be a very slow, like I think the best case scenario, if you are a believer in the F word, it would be a very slow thing. It would be, it would be grinding upwards for, you know,

the better part of the 2030s, honestly. I just wanted to bring up that hypothetical, just because I think people's perspectives on it are interesting, especially when it comes to charts. So let me recap where I think you are, Ben. We have, it's firmly each season. We have months of each season left to go, two months. Maybe September, I think is when you said,

then all of a sudden, like, it might become alt season, and that's towards the end of the cycle, starting towards the end of the C or into like Q1, 20, 26. Is that, that's kind of like your general roadmap for the near-term future? I would say my base case is that alt coins go to the range. lows by late October is my base case right now. Maybe I'm wrong, right? I mean, I also probably would have said a year ago,

they probably would have been there by now, right? So I don't know. It's kind of like the whole ETH going home thing, right? Like, there's certain events that I think need to happen. It's so hard to predict exactly when. But whenever it does, it's important to pivot, right? So right now it's been the meta that ETH needs to go home for the last like two plus years. But Eith went home.

So now it's now it's turned for time for all. to go home. Right. And so like, because Ethereum hadn't gone home for so long, it made sense to fade Eith

and to assume that Eith Bitcoin would go down. But now that it did, it makes sense to assume that Eith Bitcoin will go up, right? But for all coins, because they didn't go home themselves, right?

I don't call it going home for them. I just say go to the range lows. Because they haven't gone to the range lows. And here's a great thing about it. You can almost see the narrative unfolding, right? So, and this will be the narrative that I think people assigned to it

if and when it happens. Imagine if all. go to the range lows. Let's pretend like it's October. Okay? I'm like, what are the chances we see a pullback by all Bitcoin pairs in late October? And then sometime around that, sometime around then we start to see all these like, you know, all coin treasury companies pop up, right?

You've already seen some. We've already seen a light coin treasury company, which I did not make me happy. Yeah, we've seen a couple. But I do wonder, like, you know, for Bitcoin, I think it makes sense. For Ethereum, I think it still makes sense. But once you start going higher up the risk curve and you get a lot of companies misallocating capital into a lot of random altcoins, you almost start to develop the narrative for a potential 2026 bear market.

You could also develop the narrative for a big bounce by altcoins whenever they do hit the range lows, just like Ethereum got, you know, is getting its big bounce after it hit the range load or after it went home. So it's almost like the narrative rights itself, right? You can kind of see it. I mean, I'd be curious, maybe we should come back on here in like three or four months and just be like, all right, well, did all-coins go to the range lows? On a pullback by East Bitcoin, did Ethereum go to all-time highs?

My base, I would say this, just so we can check that, right? To be clear, because sometimes people say, well, you're giving more than one outcome. What I'm saying is I think all-bitcoin pairs will go to the range lows. I think Ethereum will probably go to new all-time highs. And I think that the path, I think the path to all-time highs for Ethereum will be an interesting one because if you look, you know, if you kind of look at some of these cycles, what it does is it like it'll go up and then it'll put in a low and then it'll go up again, put in a higher low, consolidate, and then break out to like the final high for the cycle.

So I wonder if that's what's about to happen with Ethereum. And so what I'm hoping, what I'm hoping is that I hope that what ends up happening is this. So I'll give you the two most likely outcomes that I see. And I'll tell you the one that I'm preferring right now. so you have 4K, which has been resistance forever, you know, but I'm hoping that it just breaks through, right? I don't really want it to get rejected here. I hope it just breaks through and kind of leaves people wishing that it, you know,

would drop. But then I almost wonder if it's going to kind of run to 5K, 4800, 5K, and then maybe get a pullback, you know, to like 4K or something, kind of spend some time in there and then maybe break up for whatever the cycle high is going to be, you know? And that's kind of how I see it playing out. And the other path that it could do, but it wouldn't be as much fun,

is that whenever, if it does get rejected at 4K again, I think the time frame to break through 4K is the next three to four weeks. Because if there is that typical weakness in like late August, September timeframe, which we've seen a few times in the past, then you might get this pullback. But you see every time it's been rejected at 4K, it always then goes to like the 20 week awesome A, 21 week EMA, no matter what.

So if it can't break through here, then it might have to go down to the Bullmark Sport Bend first and then go up. But I will say that my base case right now is probably not back down there. Like I would say my base case... Back down, meaning all the way down to 2700. So for the podcast listeners you can see, that's pretty high.

Maybe a little bit higher because the 21 week EMA is already at 2,800. And it's moving up quickly. So it's going to be a 3K really soon, right? It'll be a 3K in just a few weeks. Again, I don't even think that's my base case. Like, I'm not even saying that's my base case. I'm just saying it will be my base case.

If in three to four weeks, if Ethereum is still not breaking through 4K, then that would turn into my base case. But for now, I think we're still in that window where it has the opportunity to just break to 4800 now. right because and the reason I say that if you look again if we go back to that all bitcoin chart remember they showed strength in 2017 they showed strength until about late august right that liquidity did not flow back to bitcoin and start until late august so if if history repeats

itself and we still have about three to four more weeks of of slight altcoin strength against bitcoin then that the reason we would the only reason the only reason in my opinion that there's going to be any strength by altcoins against Bitcoin is if ETH is going up more against Bitcoin, right? Because Ethereum can lift the altcoin market up, but I don't think the octoin market's going to go anywhere if Eith isn't going up, right? So if all Bitcoin pairs can stay strong until late August, then the implication is that Eith Bitcoin is staying strong until late August,

meaning that the window of opportunity for Ethereum to break above 4K is between now and the next four weeks. So base case, hope that it just goes up to 4,800. between now and late August. If not, then you're going to probably get one more pullback into September before then it breaks through. But again, that's how I'm thinking of it right now. Ethereum's layer two universe is exploding with choices. But if you're looking for the best place to park and move your tokens, make your next stop Unichain.

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companies that are coming online, because, you know, mine and Ryan's position, ETH is a fantastic global internet reserve currency. It's like it's the collateral of DFI. It's the main core asset of the world's biggest smart contract chain, like all those big things. It belongs in a reserve. If we're doing the whole crypto treasury thing, like ETH should be there just alongside Bitcoin. At the same time, I'm also, again, with caution, very aware that a lot of these ETH Treasury companies are pulling forward demand. And so while they are opening up capital, opening up access to new capital, tradfai capital using some of the genius that Michael Saylor has put together,

that's all great. That's like net new buyers, truly new value to some degree. And it's also pulling forward demand. And so this narrative is being formed right now alongside East Momentum that these ETH Treasury companies are going to propel ether to new high, which is probably totally what's going to happen. And then after the all-time highs, I could totally see that same narrative flipping and being like, okay, we pulled forward.

demand. You know, we broke into all-time highs. ETH is 5K, ETH is 6K, ETH is 7K. And now that we've pulled forward demand, we've actually like run out of buyers. And that's it. That's the end of the road. And then all of a sudden, that narrative flips from being a bullish narrative to a bearish narrative. And then all of a sudden, we're into the 2026 bear market. How do you, how do you, that, I can see that same narrative being bullish now and then also bearish later and it manifesting into that bear market that you kind of kind of said. Is that kind of how you mean? Yeah, I guess. I mean, it'd be kind of like if Bitcoin, like all the ETF flows,

like maybe they start going down in 2026. So like once was a bullish catalyst, maybe it turns to do a bearish one, right? I just think what normally happens in these cycles is that Bitcoin goes up first and it leads the way. And then after Ethereum goes home, it then leads the way. And if the macro holds up long enough, then the auk coins will finally get their turn at the very,

very end of the cycle, right? At the very end of the cycle. So yeah, like that narrative could absolutely play out. But I think the reason why this is going to happen is because first of all, you had the Bitcoin treasury companies come in and it looked risky, but it's worked out, right? At least it's worked out so far, right? So what happens when someone takes a risk and it works out?

What happens? You get copycats. Yeah, you get rewarded, yeah. Right. So then now you have people doing it for Ethereum. Look, I honestly think it's fine because I think Ethereum's going to be around for a while. Like I don't like I think it's a blue shop. I think Bitcoin and Ethereum are are the two things to to really bet on in crypto more than anything else.

And so then you have the copy cuts. But I think what's going to happen with the narrative, I think that the demand, it could just, maybe there is demand, but it just gets directed to the wrong place, right? So like people are going to start, instead of looking at Bitcoin and Ethereum, they're going to get distracted by all these shiny new altcoins. And I'm concerned that. you're going to get a lot of greedy people that are going to launch these, you know, treasury companies for these auctions.

And it's going to be an absolute disaster. And then we're going to, I think that could, you know, could very well, you know, contribute to the narrative. Maybe we learn our lesson and maybe that's not how it goes. But, and you know, by the way, speaking of demand, one of the interesting things is the social interest right now, this is the social risk metric. It's still really low, you know? Yeah.

If, you were, you were around here in 2021. You remember how euphoric and crazy it was and how many new investors there were. Dude, I was getting like a thousand Twitter followers a day in 2021. That did never happen, not anywhere close to that anymore. Well, because it's nothing like it. I mean, again, look at the social interest. Like back then, the social interest was like extremely high.

And today, there's like no one here, you know? And so part of it, I guess part of it is one of the risks is like, what happened if people don't come back, right? Maybe that is why it's more of a Bitcoin-led cycle. And maybe for the next, you know, for the remainder of the cycle, Ethereum as well, is because there's just not a liquid, there's just, there hasn't been enough liquidity to go around to support the alt-coin market, right? There's just because there's no one here.

People are buying Bitcoin and some people are buying Ethereum. And then you have a lot of people buying alt-coins, but they're all buying different coins. And so every alt-coin individually ends up lagging Bitcoin and now they're lagging Ethereum. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you next. It's been, I think, the longest time ever in the crypto industry between alt seasons. Like, we haven't had an alt season since the second half of 2021, really. Like, we had Defy Summer in late 2020, but that was really for crypto natives.

Then we had each season in the first half of 2021. And then we had like alt season where you had the sole Luna, Avax, like crazy, crazy price action, the blow off top of late stage 2021. And, you know, we talk about these cycles in crypto, these four-year cycles. well, it's been more than four years. Like the four year cycle has really extended itself into like six years right now. So we haven't seen an alt season since then.

And so like whatever alt season is coming, I don't think is going to like be anything recognizable to the alt season that came before it. That's just kind of like my loose take simply on the fact of like crypto is such a different industry now. Like all season was truly like NFT season plus fast layer ones. And it's just like with the social indicator so low

as you showed, just whatever alt season is, is not going to be whatever like retail comes flooding on in because that seems to be such like far, the idea of like crypto becoming cool again in the same way that it was in 2021 just seems so far fetched these days. Right. Well, it's always possible that, well, like, it's always possible that any job is just happening

and it just doesn't happen until the very end of the year, kind of like it did in 2017. Like, there's a chance. It still happens. And it just happens at the end of the year. I could also see, you know, an example. where it happens, but it just kind of goes back up here

to like half of Bitcoin's market cap, like let's say later this year. There's no guarantee. I mean, because look what happened and if you really get into the nitty gritty details of it, you can see that's exactly what happened in November of 2017. It went there, got a massive pullback,

basically back down to the range lows again, and then you finally got alt season. But you remember, there is a lot of individual octones that don't always go back up, right, to their glory days. And if it can happen individually, then it could happen collectively,

which is another reason why, hey, sometimes it just makes more sense to bet on the best in the asset class. And for me, that's just Bitcoin and Ethereum. Is it possible that you get an alt season? It is, but I don't think the conditions are aligned for it until auctions go to the range lows, right? So I think it makes sense to fade the alt season calls

until alts are at the range lows against Bitcoin. but just because they hit the range lows does not necessarily mean you get all season because in the last cycle the first time we hit the range lows we did not get all season and the second time we hit it we didn't get all season it was the third time we actually went below it then we finally got it so again 0.25 in my opinion

is a necessary but not sufficient condition to get all season interesting yeah and then even then there's so many alts out there that like do you really want to because like the historically all season has been like you can just throw close your eyes and throw darts and you will pick a winner. Like again, I'm just stating anecdotally

that like there just are so many more alts out there that seems like there could be an alt season for some, for half of the else and not the other half. Right. And I think it's just easier to sleep at night just kind of having thick hard of Ethereum. I'm like, I don't have to worry about the idiosyncratic risk of all these different projects.

I'm just like, hey, I'm dialed in on. And you look, you don't have to have a basket of 10 different octains to make money, right? if you if you're just focused in on one good trade for a few months, you can make a lot of money from that one good trade. Yeah. Ben, every time you come on,

I just feel like I'm seeing the Matrix. So thank you for coming on and sharing your wisdom. This is your third time that we've had you on, like in this recent saga of ETH going home, ETH arriving home, and now Eith going somewhere else, you know, maybe a little bit higher.

So if people want to learn more about Into the Cryptoverse where you put out just like a ton of content, we put out a ton of content at bank list, but we have two cohoes. So you are just a one-man show putting out just a ton of content. If you want to learn a little bit more, where can they go? Oh, yeah, they can go to Into the Cryptroverse.com, and they can go to my YouTube channel. They can go to my Twitter account.

I'm a bit more loose-lipped on Twitter. So if you want to see me, if you want to see me get annoyed at some trolls, then go over on Twitter X. And you'll see that. If you want to see more professional me, then look at YouTube. We'll put all those links into the show notes as well as an affiliate. link to sign up for Into the Cryptoverse if you want to get a little bit more of Ben. Ben, thanks so much for coming on. Bankless station, you guys know the deal. Crypto is risky. You can lose what you put in, but nonetheless, we are headed west. We went home and now we're

going somewhere else. Feels good. It's not for everyone, but we are glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.