Bankless - Where is Crypto Going in 2026? | Ben Cowen

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Is the crypto cycle already over? Ben Cowen returns to break down what a post-euphoria cycle looks like, why Bitcoin may have already topped, and how 2026 could play out across crypto, stocks, and macro. We explore the case for a prolonged bear market, why a true alt season may not arrive, and the narrow scenarios where Ethereum could still make a fleeting run at new highs. From Fed policy and labor markets to AI stealing investor attention, this episode maps the competing paths ahead and what patient investors should be watching next. ------ 📣INTO THE CRYPTOVERSE | GET 10% OFF https://intothecryptoverse.com/ref/bankless/ ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN  https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | CONTINUOUS CLEARING AUCTIONS  https://bankless.cc/uniswap-cca 🛞MANTLE | GLOBAL HACKATHON 2025 https://bankless.cc/mantle-hackathon 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:49 Bitcoin's Cycle & its Implications 2:18 Ethereum's Performance & Expectations 8:58 Future Predictions for Ethereum 10:39 Comparing Ethereum to Tesla 12:32 The State of the Altcoin Market 18:26 Disappointment & Hope for ETH Holders 20:23 Macro Factors Affecting Crypto 24:37 Why No Euphoria This Cycle? 32:56 The Shift of Investor Attention 37:56 The Future of Crypto Cycles 44:16 The Need for Utility in Crypto 56:14 Gold vs. Bitcoin: A Comparison 59:45 Bitcoin's Unique Position in the Market 1:02:31 Patience and Strategy for Crypto Investors 1:06:01 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Ben Cowen https://x.com/intocryptoverse Ben’s Channel https://www.youtube.com/@intothecryptoverse ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Bagless Nation excited to have Ben Callan back on into the Cryptaverse. That's where we're going today. Ben, is the cycle over? I mean, I think for Bitcoin it is, unfortunately. Yeah, I mean, the cycle lasted about the same length as the last couple of cycles, right? So you can actually even look at the ROI of Bitcoin from the low here on this chart. And you can kind of, if October was the top, you know, this cycle lasts it 1,062 days.

Last cycle was 1,059. Cycle before that was 1,067. So, I mean, if the four-year cycle seems, if it's intact, which just seems like it is, I think Bitcoin more than likely has topped for the cycle. You said Bitcoin. Does that mean all of crypto? Not just Bitcoin, but Bitcoin is king. That just means everything downstream of Bitcoin as well.

The cycle is over? There's, I mean, there's always some stuff that puts a new all-time highs in, in the midterm year, right? Like, I mean, even last cycle, we saw Luna put in an all-time high in 2022. So it certainly could be that some things go to all-time highs. I just, I don't think, I don't think there's going to be like an alt season

or anything like that in early 2026. If there are new all-time highs, it would be just for select all-coins, just a few of them. Did you have any in mind? Like last time Darlauna was very hypey, there were some other hypey types of ecosystems that were candidates for this.

It doesn't seem clear that there's any candidates even for that scenario this time around. We had Zcash putting a new all-time highs. That's true. That's true. And that's kind of what is hard because it's what makes people think there's an all-season when there's really not. Is there's always like something going to an all-time high?

And then people are like, all right, well, I missed this one. let me buy the next one and then there's ends up not being another one for like another year. You know, obviously we've talked a lot about Ethereum. Ethereum is an interesting one for me because in some ways it's played out how I thought. In other ways, you know, it's been a little bit different. It obviously did finally go to its regression ban, which it felt like, you know, we spent forever and a half waiting for. That finally happened and it rallied out of that.

And, you know, I had been kind of under the impression that what it was going to do was sweep the prior all-time high, fall back down about 30%, and then go back up. But it's obviously gone down a little bit more than 30%, right? I think it's probably closer to like 40% now. Yeah, it's currently down about 40%. It went down about 47%. So you can see it's actually just above the regression ban itself. Like it's kind of just above it, just like it was back over in, you know, like 2022 and late 2022 and then 2023 and then 2024.

It struggles to want to go into the regression band. So I don't want to say it's impossible for Ethereum to do it. Like it could. This pattern is a pattern we actually saw Tesla go through. Coincidentally enough, I know that seems kind of out of left field, but when you think about what Ethereum did, it had a high, right? It then put in a low, and then it put in a macro higher low, right? And, you know, the first low was it around 1,000,

and then the second low was it around 13, 1400, right? Now, if you go look at the Tesla chart, what you'll find is almost the exact same thing, right? Like you had a low by Tesla. the first low was at around 100, and the second low was at about 130, 140, right? And then after that, it rallied on up and then swept the high, right? It came back down, and then it ultimately went up,

and now it's putting in new all-time highs, right? Now it's right back up to those highs. But it took a while, right? I mean, from this high to then putting in a new high, it took about a year, right? Like it took about a year. And, you know, when it dropped, it actually dropped about 56%.

So it actually dropped a little bit more than what Ethereum just dropped. The drawdown lasted, you could argue, about 16 to 18 weeks or so, before the next move up began. Ethereum, I think it's currently, what week is at 18 or so? And so what I think is going to happen is, I mean, I think there might be some form of a countertren rally by Bitcoin sometime in early 2026. And is it possible for Ethereum to put in a divergent high then where it goes higher while Bitcoin goes on a lower height?

Like, it is possible. Like, it is certainly possible. I just, what I'm struggling with right now, just to be completely honest, right, is if this is like 2019, which we've obviously made the comparisons to, like if you look at the social interest in crypto, just overlay it with the price of Ethereum,

like, there's not a lot of social interest right now, right? To really justify an all season. But that doesn't mean that some things can't go to all-time highs is if the people that have all this malinvestment in all coins, put it in things that are better, right? Like if they rotate, say, to the blue chips or something, and that's how you could see certain things go to higher highs. But there's two ways I can see this play out, right? Option number one is where it follows Tesla's path, right? And it rallies up to a new all-time high in early 2026, and then it crashes back down,

kind of like mid to late 2026, kind of in line with all the prior bear markets, right? Where, you know, you had a low in 2022 and you had a low in 2018, something like that, where it forms a low, kind of going into the midterm year, and then it prints a divergent tie

and then sells off as Bitcoin confirms the bear market on a macro lower high. The one thing that Ethereum has going for it right now that it didn't have going for it, in 2019 was that in 2019, you could argue that the ETH Bitcoin ratio was still in a downtrend. Right. Like it was still in a downtrend. Whereas I think the Ethereum Bitcoin valuation for this cycle bottomed in April of 2025.

And so what's interesting is that, and feel free to jump in if I'm rambling too much. But what's interesting is if you look at Bitcoin, one of the things we notice, is that Bitcoin historically rallies to the 50-week moving average to confirm the bear market. You can see that it happened here in 2022. It also happened in 2018, right? And the 50-week moving average for Bitcoin is currently at around $102,000. So it's just north of 100K. If Bitcoin were to rally to 100K on a macro-lower high,

whether Ethereum puts in an all-time high, it just more so depends on what ETH Bitcoin does, right? So in this case, previously I have said a target, a potential target of ETH Bitcoin could be around 0.053. And the reason why I said 0.053, there's two reasons. One reason is if you take the fib retracement from the prior cycle, you can see that the ETH Bitcoin ratio essentially rallied back up to the 0.5 fib retracement, right?

A 0.5. And then if you do the same thing for this cycle, the 0.5 actually happens to correspond to about 0.053. The reason why that's interesting is 0.053 also happens to be the pre-merge low, right? 0.053. So think about this. If Bitcoin would have rallied to 100K

and Eif Bitcoin prints a higher low, and then goes to 0.053, well, 0.053 times 100,000 puts Ethereum at 5300, right? So there is a chance that it could happen in 2026. If it doesn't happen in 2026, it doesn't mean that it won't ever. I would actually be a lot more bearish right now if Ethereum had already gone to 5K. It's kind of like with Tesla, right? I mean, it's kind of like with Tesla how, because it only swept the $1,000, high back then, it kind of like left a lot of bulls with something to be desired, right?

Like, you know, it swept the high, it got this massive drop, and now it's right back to all-time highs, you know? I could see Ethereum doing something similar, but I don't know if it's going to happen on the same time frame, if that makes sense. Like, you know, there does exist a scenario where it happens immediately in early 2026 and then we get a normal bear market, right? But there's also a scenario where retail just kind of doesn't care for the next year. And then maybe Ethereum breaks through 5K like 2027, 2028 timeframe after consolidating longer in the regression band.

So, I mean, I do think Ethereum will eventually go to 5K. But it's kind of hard nailing down exactly when it's going to happen. I would argue that if it happens in early 2026, it would feel great in the short term. but honestly it would probably lead to a massive sell-off later on. I think it would be better for it to wait, but I don't know if it will. Okay, there's two questions that that leads to for me. So in this scenario where ETH does reach all-time highs at some point in 2026,

would that be unprecedented to have ETH sort of, almost feels like ETH leading in that world, whereas we've all been trained to see Bitcoin as like, oh, Bitcoin has to kind of all-time high first, and then Eith. Yeah, I mean, I think in, I mean, in 2018, Ethereum put it in an all-time high,

even while Bitcoin didn't, you know? Bitcoin topped in December and then Ethereum topped in January. But that was at the end of like a euphoria phase, which is not something we felt this time around. Exactly, which is why I feel like it's more, like we're more like in this phase here, like after this like 2019 style rally.

Okay. And then we're just kind of like in apathy. but I just, I don't know if, like, if there could be, like, if, if you can see my chart, I'm like, all right, could there be a scenario where it just kind of like wicks down, wicks up, and then crashes? Like, I could see something like that happening. That would be in line with the butterfly harmonic idea that we talked about on your channel, like a year ago, right?

I mean, back when Ethereum went home, as we called it, we said, all right, now that it went home, it'll likely rally to new all-time highs, but on the first sweep of the high, it should get rejected. And where I'm a little hesitant is I don't know if Ethereum can go back up going into the midterm year if Bitcoin truly is in a bear market, right? And if we're in a bare market, which is what it feels like, it would be kind of hard for Ethereum to go up there. And if it does go up there while Bitcoin's in a bare market, it likely means it's just sort of like a bull trap, right? It's just fleeting.

It will last. If we go to 5K and then we crash right back down to 2K, kind of like what just happened, you know, to be honest. But I mean, you know, could there be a scenario where it just falls back into the regression man and then eventually goes back up? That's also possible. I almost, at this point, I almost would prefer that.

But I am, like I am, I would say the only, only alt coin, I mean, I don't really consider Ethereum and an octo coin, to be completely honest, but the only alt coin that I'm even considering this for is Ethereum. I think a lot of the other octoins are kind of cooked at this point for this cycle. Wow. I just don't see. I just don't see.

If they haven't put it on all the time high yet, they're probably not going to. I could see a scenario where Ethereum does it, but I'm also not married to the idea. I got you. So low probability, but a possibility that ETH could hit an all-time high in 2026. If so, it would be more of a fleeting all-time high so long as Bitcoin is in a bear.

The second question that falls out from this is, so when you do things, Ben, like you compare Tesla, the Tesla chart to something like the Ether chart. Like, how do you, like, how does that make sense? Like, I mean, those are two completely different assets. Obviously, maybe the charts are similar. They could be similar. But on what basis is there a comparison?

Is it sort of, like, I guess I'm trying to get to the root of why this would even make sense that one chart for a completely different asset in a completely different industry, completely different market structure is similar to another asset. Is it market psychology? Yeah, I guess. I mean, you could argue that human emotions don't really change from, I mean, there's also a lot of speculation in Tesla as well, right? I mean, if you, if you were to take Tesla as just a car company,

you could argue that it's completely way overvalued, right? In terms of like the price to earnings and everything like that. But if you take Tesla as more than just a car company, if it's more about speculation about how, you know, we're going to be using AI and robotics and a lot of other things and robo taxis and everything else, there's a lot more speculation there and it kind of helps it maintain these higher valuation.

So I think there's just a lot of. of speculation. The only reason I even knew about it was because I bought Ethereum in April, and I remember having done the same thing with Tesla in April of 2024, right? Like, I bought Tesla in April 2024 when it capitulated on a macro higher low. And then I talked about Ethereum going home for a long time, and I was like, gosh, it's bottoming exactly a year after Tesla bottomed. And so it kind of seemed like from a seasonality season. standpoint, we could get this rally out of April. And we did. I mean, yes. Like, will the, will it break down at some point? Yeah, absolutely. Because you could argue that it kind of already has

because it took Tesla until December to sweep the high. Whereas Ethereum, it only took it until August. So instead of April to August, instead of April to December, Ethereum did it a lot quicker. So that's why I'm saying, like, you know, if Ethereum is to follow Tesla and go to a new all-time high. Like, maybe it happens very quickly, and it doesn't take as long as it doesn't take a full year. I would view that as a much more bearish outcome, though, right? Like, I would see it as kind of like an exit rally for all these guys

who've developed these like treasury companies around Ethereum and whatnot. Like, I feel like they might use that as just an opportunity to just dump on all the retail investors that are going in and fomoing in. I think it would be healthier at this point. to just kind of like consolidate around these levels at least through the summer of 2026, kind of like Ethereum did last cycle where it formed a low in June,

kind of in the first half of the midterm year. Maybe it forms a low in 2026. The other thing too, remember, is by the time Tesla rallied to a new all-time high, it was actually after it swept the low. and it went down, it went to 490 and then it went back down to 210. So for Ethereum, it would go from 4,900,

that potentially puts it at like sweeping this low from June, right? Like 2,100, right back to the fair value logarithmic regression trendline. So there does exist a scenario where like the pattern does something like this where like it sells off and then consolidates and then rallies back up to all-time highs. It's funny how the numbers are so similar. too, just eth is like 10x and Tesla. It really is just a 10x. It's crazy.

It really is just a 10x. And I do, I mean, look, I do think if theory will eventually go back to a new old time high, I would just say like it would probably be a lot more bullish if it happened, you know, not in the next two months. Like if it happens in the next two months, how do we get around the idea of the four-year cycle being different? Maybe it just gets that rally into January and then that's all she wrote for a while. So we'll see.

I mean, I still hold some Ethereum that I bought back in April. So, I mean, obviously I am incentivized to see it to see it go higher. But I just want to be trying to be objective about it. I'd be like, look, guys, if Ethereum had already gone to like 5 to 6K, I would be very bearish on it right now, like very. But it didn't do that. And so it kind of leat, like I feel like there will be another move up. I just don't know if it's going to happen in January or if it's going to have.

happen in like June or like exactly what month is going to happen. Okay. So, but it's definitely not an overbought territory. This is maybe an accumulation type of territory. If you're a long-term believer in ETH, we have a lot of long-term believers in ETH, like let that tune into bank lists. As you know, Ben, if you zoom out on the cycle, just let's stick with ETH, the asset. Should ETH holders and ETH bulls be disappointed about Ethereum to performance this cycle?

or there are reasons for them to be hopeful? Well, I mean, I think this has been kind of a Bitcoin maxi cycle in a lot of ways. And I think the reason for that, as kind of you said earlier, there just wasn't a lot of retail interest this cycle. Like this cycle, this is Bitcoin color-coded by social interest, this is not looked like 2021 or 2017 where Bitcoin topped on Euphoria. It looks a lot more like 2019, where Bitcoin topped on apathy. And when it topped on apathy back in 2019,

Bitcoin topped two months before quantitative tightening ended. And this cycle, Bitcoin topped in October, two months before quantitative tightening ended in December. So, you know, Ethereum can control what goes on on Ethereum, right? But it cannot control the macro economy, right? It cannot control what's going on there. And unfortunately, for risky assets, I mean, Ethereum is a much riskier asset than like buying the stock market, right?

Like buying like an index fine. Ethereum is obviously riskier. It just, it doesn't hold up as well when you have this like macro economic uncertainty, right? Like when you have the unemployment rate going up as much as it has been. You know, throughout all of Ethereum's history, the unemployment rate has basically just been trending down, you know, except for the pandemic. And then recently it's been trending up. So I think the reason why people are disappointed is because they were expecting, you know, an all season like in prior cycles.

But we didn't really get that. And the reason we didn't get that was because, you know, we never truly went to this like euphoria mode. Yes, Bitcoin went up, but it went up akin to what it did in 2019 where it topped on apathy. So I do think there will come a time again where we go, you know, we have. much looser monetary policy and something like Ethereum does much better. But I just don't see it happening in a durable fashion in, you know, in the first, like, yeah, I wouldn't see it happening in a durable fashion in the first half of 2026. And like, and that could even include even if it wicks to a new all-time high, that doesn't

mean anything, right? I mean, you're, you know, I'm not here and you're not here just to see Ethereum go to one slightly higher high and then go to a new low. Like, you know, I mean, if you're in the market, if you've been in the market since 2021 or since 2017, you know, you clearly won Ethereum and you own Ethereum, you clearly wanted to go to 10K or much higher. You don't just want it to top out at 5K and then, and then that be it. So I think the long-term bull case for Ethereum is that, you know, this cycle hasn't been what people thought because the macro economy hasn't really allowed for it. It hasn't allowed the more

speculative of assets to do as well because people are more so worried about inflation and and the labor market. At some point in time, we're going to get back to a period where the unemployment rate starts going down, just like it did, you know, from 2009 until, you know, 2020. And by the way, I mean, think about how well Bitcoin did during that time while the unemployment rate was going down. We'll get to that point eventually again. We're just not there yet.

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Can you explain this, Ben? Why did we not get the euphoria phase of this cycle? So you said the Bitcoin cycle is basically over, which largely probably means the crypto cycle is over. I think a lot of investors were holding out, for that euphoria phase you usually see at the end of the cycle. I mean, we saw it in 2017. We saw it in 2021.

The social chart that you were showing clearly shows that. And so investors have been waiting for that, and they never felt it this time around. Why not? I mean, I really think it was just, it's due to monetary policy that then affects the macro economy, right? I mean, I think we've had, there was a lot of mistakes made with monetary policy back in 2021.

I mean, they should have been raising interest rates back then. and they didn't. And so then, like, we ended up seeing, like, the crappiest of all coins rally for, like, six, 12 months. And now we're paying the price, right? Like, we're just continuing to pay the price for all that. And so, yeah, I think the reason is, is, you know, in that 2019 move, right,

you can see how Bitcoin topped here about two months before quantitative tightening ended. You could argue the same thing's happening now, right? This purple line is a QE line. It's the balance sheet of Federal Reserve, yeah. Okay. And so, you know, there was no rotation into alt coins after that, right? The rotation into alts didn't happen until like a year and a half later, right?

And what ultimately led to the rotation into all coins was the stock market selling off. And that's the issue that we have in crypto is that like when crypto drops, the Fed does not care. Right, like the Fed's not going to come rescue all coins or Bitcoin for that matter. When the stock market drops, then they come to the rescue. Let me show you a chart that's really interesting. Look at Bitcoin's chart against the S&P 500. What you'll notice is that in 2019, Bitcoin started bleeding against the S&P, but while Bitcoin was bleeding against it, the S&P 500 continued to go up.

Look at the S&P in 2019 and early 2020. 20. Like, it kept going up despite the fact that Bitcoin was bleeding to the stock market. The same thing's happening now, right? Like, Bitcoin is bleeding to the stock market, but stocks keep going up. And so last cycle, there wasn't a rotation out of Bitcoin until after Bitcoin had a truly parabolic rally where retail came back. But that rally wasn't able to occur until after the Fed aggressively cut rates and until after there was all this money printing. But the problem is that the Fed did not aggressively cut rates and really print money in excess until there was a reason to do so.

And one of those reasons, of course, was the stock market dropping and the stock market dropping was arguably because of the pandemic. So we find ourselves in a very precarious position where, like, the main way for crypto to really go back up is for lose some monetary policy, but we're not going to get the type of monetary policy we want until the stock market starts to show weakness, right? And so that's kind of the dilemma that we face right now is like in order for an alt season to eventually happen, whether it be one year or two years away, it's almost like you have to have the stock market, have a big sell-off to then lead to lower rates. And regardless, I don't think Powell

wants to be remembered for aggressively cutting rates before he leaves office. So I don't think it's going to happen before May of 2026. I think there's going to be these macro headwinds that crypto faces through the summer of 26. And by the way, if you compare Bitcoin's current bear market, not with 2022, 2018, or 2014, where we topped on euphoria, if you compare it to 2019 where we topped on apathy, it kind of looks very familiar where it's just kind of slightly lower lows, slightly lower highs, and maybe we can start to form a base by the summer of 2026.

Okay, so if all of that has to happen first, this does imply it could take some time for this to all play out. However, when you're showing kind of the purple line, which is the Fed balance sheet and talking about looser monetary policy, Ben, aren't we on the cusp of starting to see signs of looser monetary policy. We got another rate cut just was a week or two ago. And then also, what is this, $40 trillion in T-bill, a spend, a billion, I should say, been added to the Fed balance sheet. Like there's murmurings that this purple line may be, and certainly rates at least, are beginning to reverse in the loose policy direction. And certainly, whoever Trump appoints as the next Fed chair, he's come out and said,

I want somebody who's going to cut rates. So isn't this loose monetary policy basically implied right now and then moving into 2026? Yeah, to some degree. But I think there's one reality that we have to face, and that is after quantitative tightening ended in 2019 and QE began, you can see the purple line started going up, but Bitcoin was still falling, you know?

and that's before the pandemic, right? That's before the pandemic. You can also see that the Fed was cutting rates. But Bitcoin was still falling, just like it's doing now. I think Bitcoin's been falling while the Fed's been cutting rates. So I think the hard part with this is that, like, you're right, QE, like, you know, QT has ended and they're starting to turn things back on and they're lowering rates.

But they're not doing it as aggressive as they need to. to be to really justify like a truly parabolic move. So let me show you an example of what I mean and where Ethereum has done best. If you look at the Fed funds rate and you subtract out the two-year yield. So we're treating the two-year yield here basically as the neutral rate. So if the Fed funds rate is above the neutral rate, then it means the economy is in restrictive territory. And if the Fed funds rate is below the neutral rate, it means that we're in more economically

looser monetary policy territory. So when you think about where Ethereum has done best, it did very poorly when monetary policy was up here, where the Fed Funds rate was well above the neutral rate. And that's where we've been for the entire cycle.

Right. Where Ethereum has done best is where it's closer to Z, like when the Fed Fund's rate is closer to the two-year yield or well below it, like over here in like, you know, 2016, 2017, and then in this area, in 2020 and 2021. Like, that is where it is done the best in those periods.

When it's up here, it doesn't do well. And so I think that's kind of like what a lot of people have missed this cycle is like, look, when you're in, you can cut rates, but, you know, as long as the two, as long as the Fed Fund's rate is still about the two-year yield, you could argue that we're still in restrictive territory. And right now, the Fed Fund's rate is 3.75 percent. and the two-year yield is 3.5%. So we need one more rate cut

just to get to the point where you could argue we're at neutral, right? One more rate cut. Okay, so let me give you another reason, a possible reason why we didn't hit Euphoria this cycle, and this is less to do with loose monetary policy or tight monetary policy, and more to do with investor attention.

So here's a claim. investor attention was just on AI this cycle. Crypto was not the hot new tech this cycle. And you could see it in the social charts. Like investors, where's all of that frenetic energy? It's not in our crypto charts. It's in OpenAI and Google and Nvidia and, you know, the Mag 7. And so some are wondering if that will ever come back to crypto.

but to what extent do you think that's an explainer of why we never hit the euphoria? Just the euphoria was out there It just wasn't in crypto, it was an AI. Yeah, I mean, I think there's some validity to it. I think too, if you think about it, if you're a developer in crypto, I've said this before, right?

If you're a developer in crypto, what are you going to focus on? Are you going to try to build the next alt-coin and let's imagine you have like the best view of crypto and you truly want to build something valuable, right? That's not just another rugpole, right? Let's say you have like a good heart and you really just want to build something.

The problem is that this cycle, no one has cared about those people. Like all people have cared about are like meme coins and like think about all the meme coin launches. So how demoralizing would it be as an event? to spend years pouring your skills into developing something only for some random meme coin to outperform your lifetime returns on a Tuesday afternoon, which is essentially what happened this cycle, you know? So I think a lot of developers left crypto and went over to AI where they

felt like their skills would be more appreciated and where they could monetize it more and not just get caught a scammer, right? Which is ultimately what happens in the crypto space. So what I think has happened is, you know, there's been this like very much like this malinvestment of capital, this cycle where people just keep throwing their money into like random crap that has zero value, like absolutely zero value. And they know it has zero value. They're literally called meme coins and the creators will say like there's no value. And then people will still go and buy it. And it makes absolutely no sense. So I think like you don't need the SEC. to regulate crypto, in my view,

because I think the market will regulate itself over a long enough period of time. Like, there's people that spent the last three years buying the crappiest of all coins that hopefully will not make those same mistakes in the future because they're going to be like, all right, I just spent years buying all this crap, and I would have been better off

if I had just stuck with the blue chips of every asset class. Right? So I think over a long enough period of time, the market's kind of like regulated, themselves. And I think a lot of the people that have been in crypto for the last few years kind of know how it works now. In order for a lot of the meme coin stuff to take off again, you would need a huge influx of retail, like of new retail investors into the space. Because I feel like everyone at this point in crypto has learned their lesson and they

don't want to touch it. A lot of them don't want to touch it ever again. And the people that do are just, you know, I mean, they just treat it as a casino anyways. Like it's no different than just going to Las Vegas and betting it all on black or, you know, or something. something like that. So I think that is a big component. I mean, I think AI has stolen some of the thunder. But I mean, had you shown me a chart of just Bitcoin and monetary policy and all Bitcoin pair is I feel like I could have explained everything even without knowing that AI was even a thing. But I do think if you're a developer, do you go, do you go launch an all coin and try to build something like that? Or do you go try to develop the next, I don't know,

chat GPT wrapper to some, you know, to form or to some, you know, to accommodate some like niche industry that you can package in like an interesting way. And I think a lot of people took the latter approach. Well, and this goes to another question. I think that's out there and lingering in folks' minds. I never, I don't want to say I've never seen crypto sentiment so bad, but maybe that's partially true. I think there's this question, Ben, as to whether investors are ever going to actually come back to crypto. So maybe they've been burnt too much. Investors and or builders are they ever going to come back? And so there's some question, I think, in people's mind,

maybe this happens every bare season, or maybe this is unique and new, which is maybe that was it. Maybe that was the last cycle. Maybe there are no more cycles moving forward. Maybe there's a slow grind up, but this plays out over many years and even decades,

because investors aren't coming back, builders aren't coming back. It's it. It's over. And so the social that, we saw that chart that you were showing, it never hits kind of the red again because investors have been too burnt by this asset class. What do you think about that? Because if that's the case, this breaks the cycles, we don't get another four-year cycle. Or also, it could mean that we've

just entered a new era in a new phase. So the previous phase, we had these four-year cycles, and they were boom-bust, you know, euphoria, and then trenches of despair. net new moving forward, the second error, we're going to have to earn it. It's going to have to come through traditional finance, real world adoption, the good old fashion way, the hard way. And so if that's the case, that's different from a structural perspective. So you're saying, which I completely agree with, that dubious speculation only gets us so far. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I agree. I think a lot of people are kind of tired of the crypto asset class constantly promising things and then it not really ever happening.

What I think ultimately needs to happen for us to get back on track, I feel like we need to rebuke all the crap in the space and we just need to focus on like a few things. Because the reality is there's not really a future where everyone's launching their own meme coin and alt coin and that's a sustainable thing. You know, could there be a future where you have a few different chains and people working on developing more like interoperability between the chain? chains, like, that's a future I could see. But I just, I don't think, you know, this is not completely unprecedented, even though it

sounds like it probably is. In China, like thousands of years ago, there is a speculation phase where a lot of people just created their own coins. And they all, you know, they all had like different values. And there was like thousands and thousands of them. And then eventually it all just collapsed, right? And because society cannot function on a hundred thousand different currencies, you know, it just can't. Because there's just not enough confidence that they actually hold value. You know, there can be confidence in a few, right? But not 100,000 different ones.

Look, I think long-term, you know, retail will come back. You know, they might not come back in 2026, maybe not in 2027. I don't know exactly when it's going to happen. but long term, I want to be optimistic and assume that they will eventually come back. I mean, I've been accused this cycle of being too pessimistic about all coins a lot, but I had my reasons, right?

Like, I had my reasons for it. It was mostly based to monetary policy. And, you know, I don't know if that was the actual reason why all coins struggled this cycle. It seems like that was the reason to me, but just because they coincided, it doesn't mean that was the actual reason. Like maybe it was the AI reason, right?

Maybe it was the ETS that, you know, who knows what the reason was. Regardless, I mean, I do think attention will come back to crypto. It just might take longer, you know, than people were thinking. I mean, I can see it happening next cycle, potentially. Maybe it doesn't. You know, maybe it takes 10 years. You know, you know, the funny thing is we were talking about, or we've talked before about, like, the lost decade in stocks, how, like, sometimes stocks will just go sideways.

for like 10 years and you really don't have any gains to show for it. That's, you know, like look at 1999 to like 2008, right? Really, if you had, if you bought in 2000, you had to wait until 2013 for durable new highs after that. So like, is it possible that we're just, like, that we've been in that for like the last four to five years for certain assets? where like we're in a longer dead dead done i mean obviously bitcoin hasn't been in that bitcoin has gone to new all-time highs but ethereum if we're being honest right like it it hasn't

really gone to a new all-time high not a durable one you could argue in over four years right like four four and a half years at this point if you don't if you exclude the november 2021 top and so one of the things i thought about a long time ago and it and it always made me a little like curious as to like what it would mean. And I feel like I'm getting the answer now is like I was looking at this chart. And I remember in 2022 like looking at it and and kind of extrapolating the regression line. And and thinking to myself, gosh, like it's going to take until 2026 or the quote unquote fair value of Ethereum to be $2,000. Right.

that was the crazy thing to me back then. I'm like, gosh, because back then, Ethereum was already at $3,000 in March of 2022. I was like, I was looking at it. It's going to take until 2026. Just for the fair value, you reach 2K.

So it could just simply be that we're in a zone like this where we kind of come back down, maybe we rally back up, and then eventually as all this stuff finally catches up, then we can build off of it and then retail comes back.

Maybe we, just brought in too many people too quickly, and there just wasn't anyone else to bring in. And then so we then spend all these years just kind of like twiddling our thumbs, waiting for something that everyone thought was going to happen three to four years earlier. So I will say, I do think retail will come back. I just think they haven't been able to come back this cycle because of high inflation, because of a rising unemployment rate, and also because of within crypto, I feel like there's been this very much malinvestment of capital.

and also with basically every single octon, a lot of them don't really have good revenue models. You know, there's been plenty of companies that have done well, like Apple and Google and Nvidia and Microsoft, but they're actually making money, right? It's not just a circular economy like a lot of altcoins. Like there's a lot of octones that will print more octones and then give those auctions as rewards to their users,

but then those rewards are just diluting the tokens that the users already had because they're just print. renting more tokens, right? So what we need is we need the projects to actually generate revenue, like more revenue so that people, so that more institutional investors can look at it and understand it and be like, all right, this is the bull case. Like they're making money and we can see how they're making money. What instead has been, it's been this constant promise of, oh, we're going to have this utility in the future, but then the future just keeps getting kicked down the road. Like the A, the can just keeps getting kicked down the road. So I agree with you. I think

we need, you know, more utility in the crypto space. I do think social interest will return. It's just, it's just taking longer. And I mean, I think the reason I think that is because I just want to be, I mean, I want to be long-term bullish on Bitcoin. And, you know, because, I mean, if not, what are we doing here, right? Like, I mean, long-term, I'm bullish on it. I just think that this is the first cycle where the unemployment rate has really gone up, and it's, and it's affected a lot of a lot of different cryptocurrencies. Introducing FRAXUSD, the genius aligned digital dollar from FRAX. It's secure, stable, and fully backed by institutional grade real world assets, custodied by BlackRock, Superstate, and fidelity. It's always redeemable one-to-one, transparently audited, and built for payments, defy, and banking. The best of all worlds. At the core is FRAXNet, an on-chain fintech platform built to align with emerging U.S. regulatory frameworks, where you can mint,

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they're talking about tokenization. We have full approval of ETFs. We have the genius stablecoin bill. The Secretary of Treasury of the United States of America is saying he anticipates a world where we see three to five trillion in dollars on stable coins. We have the clarity bill in front of Congress. We have all of Tradfi. And, uh, even Project Crypto from the SEC, we have the total opposite of Gary Gensler at the chair of the SEC talking about tokenization being a priority in 2026.

Like, these are all tailwinds in our favor, and yet prices are like this, and we're in sentiment despair? I mean, make that make sense. That's probably just like, I guess it's one of those things where if this doesn't convince you that markets are forward-looking, then like nothing ever will.

like all that stuff that you mentioned is a good thing and long term it's bullish but like it's possible that it was all like that a lot of it was priced in when Trump took office you know because that ended up being a top for a while right Bitcoin topped at around 109K and it only went above it slightly to 126 so I think it's just evidence that the market is somewhat forward looking and and you know by the time you wait there's a kind of common saying, I can't remember what it is. It's like, if you wait for the robins, spring will be over, right? So if you wait to see the robins, if you wait for things to look good to buy, the bull market's over, you know? That's why, like, when the bear market's going on, if you wait for things to look, if you wait for things to look good, you end up missing the bottom, you know?

So that's a common, I think it's a great quote is to kind of live by when it comes to investing. If you wait for the robins, spring will be over. So if you waited until the Genius Act, if you waited until, you know, Trump to take office, if you waited until all this stuff to go out and buy Bitcoin, you waited until you saw the Robbins

and Spring was already over by that point. This also makes me wonder what the AI market is pricing in from a forward-looking basis, right? And how big that could expand. I mean, are you tracking that at all? It seems like you could apply your same knowledge of markets

and bubbles and euphoria and cycles to something like AI. I was reading at Howard. Mark's memo. He's had a series of memos lately, and the question right now is, are we in a bubble? And he never quite answers that question, but he's like, yeah, it looks like we're close to, I saw a Ray Dalio clip earlier this week saying we're 80% of the way in a bubble in terms of AI stock. Do you have a take on that? Or do you, are you reserved just to crypto? Oh, absolutely not. I do have a take on it. I would say there's two ways to measure it.

And one ways, well, there's three. Well, I'll show you two. One is the S&P to divided by M2 and the other one's the S&P divided by gold. Okay. So if you look at it against M2, which I don't even know, this is not even my favorite way to look at it. If you look at it against this, it suggests we have about one more year, okay?

And what I mean by that is if you look at what happened in 1996, so then what happened into the dot-com era, you see this kind of this bar pattern, and then you overlay it, so you take 1996 and you just put it on 2022, it's almost a carbon copy, right? Like you even got your 20% drop around the same time.

And you could argue that we're like kind of entering into maybe like an early correction into early 2026 as well. So if you look at it like that, then the tariff capitulation that we had was just the same type of capitulation we had in 1998. And you'll see that the drop that we do a 20% drop in 1998 occurred at the exact same level it occurred at in 2025, we got 20% drops. And then after that, we went into this,

we went into more of like a longer term distribution phase that held for like a year. And then eventually everything came collapsing down. Right. So when you look at it through the lens of M2, you could argue that it absolutely is a bubble. But there's a counterpoint, I mean, as well, is that like, just because it topped them, there in 2000 doesn't mean it can't go higher this time.

Because also, you know, like there's some justification for like maybe long term this whole thing is increasing and not just an oscillator. If you look at the NASDAQ against M2, it already has gone to all time highs, right? So you can see that like, don't, like, I don't think we should put a cap on what the S&P can do just because of where it topped out against the M2 all those years ago. But my favorite chart for looking at this to kind of figure out, like, is this as bubblish as 2000? Is to look at the S&P 500 divided by gold? Interesting.

And when you look at it divided by gold, it actually does not look like 2000 at all. It looks like the 1970s. So if you look at it here, what you'll notice is that these valuations right here against the S&P, you can also see the S&P was at these valuations. against gold back in the 1970s as well.

And that's exactly the same level we're testing these days, right? So this is what the dot-com era looked like, right? Where the S&P was much higher against gold than it is right now. In fact, from the current levels, the S&P 500 would have to rally 258% against gold to get as highly valued as it was at the peak of the dot-com era. So that would mean we're still very early then, possibly. Well, only if it ends up becoming a bubble like the dot-com era.

I mean, there's also a chance. It's like the 1970s where, you know, we keep bouncing off this level and we do get some corrections and maybe the stock market drops 30, 40, 50%, at some point. But it's not the same type of bear market like you got from like the dot-com crash or something. My guess is that it's not either of these things because it's not going to be 2000 and it's not going to be 1973 because it's not 2000 and it's not 1973. Like it's 2025 and something slightly different is probably going to happen. Right?

Like so it's not going to be a carbon copy. I think something slightly different will happen until we have to stay on our toes. But I will say like if you look at it just against M2, it does seem like valuations are getting stretched. But also at the same time, there's a lot of companies today that are actually making money with AI, whereas I feel like in the dot-com era, like there wasn't a lot of revenue being generated. It was dubious speculation, was it not?

Right. I mean, I feel like it's easy to sort of assume we're in a bubble. And I feel like my base case is that eventually like we're going to have a massive drop out of the bubble. But what if it doesn't happen until, say, 2028, right? Or 2029. Like, who knows when that's going to happen? It could be, it could still be, you know, a couple of years away for all we know. and it's hard to time these things.

It's hard to know exactly how things are going to play out. You know, I would even argue that, and this is not the first time, you know, of anyone expressing this opinion, but I would almost argue, like, what's the scarier proposition that we are in a bubble or that we're not in a bubble, you know? Like, if we're not in a bubble, then a lot of the people that are waiting for much lower valuations are just going to be waiting forever. And if we are in a bubble, then obviously the negative thing about that. is that then it kind of kills the market for, you know, five to ten years.

And obviously no one wants that. So it's tough. It's tough. I will say there's certain aspects of things that do, that do appear somewhat bubble-like. But I don't think valuations are as stretched as they were in 2000. I think they're more so, it's more like 19, it's more like the 1970s, if I had to guess, or the 1940s in terms of inflation and that kind of stuff. more so than what we saw during the dot-com era.

And if you look at the dot-com era, like look at the S&P divided by gold, like it rallied from this low from 1980 until when it topped two decades later, the S&P 500 rallied over 4,300 percent, right? Like ever since Bitcoin has been around in 2009, the S&P only went up 260%. You know, right, against gold.

you're talking about an order of magnitude difference in terms of, you know, in terms of that. And who knows? Maybe, maybe like we're kind of in this area where it's just kind of rolling over into a low and then it then builds up into a more massive level. I don't know. Listen, I will say with stocks, no one can predict what's going to happen. And that's why usually lump sum is better than anything else because everyone thinks they can time the market. And then basically no one ends up being successful at it.

Ben, since you brought up gold, there's another question in my mind that has perplexed me for this cycle. And I'm wondering if you know the answer to it or have any ideas, which is, why has gold price risen so much and left Bitcoin in the dust? Bitcoin was supposed to be digital gold. It's a non-sovereign store of value. Why is it that gold is rallying on that narrative and Bitcoin is not. And is there maybe a bull case here that eventually Bitcoin will catch up? I mean, eventually everything that's worth anything, I feel like eventually goes up into the right, you know, because the denominator of what we value it in is going asymptotically to zero, right? Like the U.S. dollar purchasing power is going to zero. So if there's assets that

are valuable, then theoretically they should increase in value over the long period of time. With gold, I will say Bitcoin has never traded like gold, right? And a lot of people think it's digital gold, but it's never traded like gold. If it had traded like gold, no one would care about Bitcoin right now because it would have meant it hadn't done anything for the last 15 years, you know?

We don't want it to trade like gold. Right, because we're more often in risk on times than risk off. So it makes more sense to want it to trade like a risk on asset, not like a risk off asset. It's just that when you go, you know, when you go in a risk off time, times certain things like gold can rally for really long periods of time.

A lot of times the gold bull markets can last like 10 years. You know, like this was a 10 year bull market from 2000 until 2011. And this was a 10 year bull market from 1970 until 1980. So gold's rallying probably just because of all the macro uncertainty, all the mistakes that you could perceive that the Federal Reserve is doing. The fact that there's no fiscal responsibility at all, right? Like everyone just wants to inflate our problems away, print more money. It's going to likely cause the bond vigilantes to revolt at some point and send

the long end of the old curve higher. I think that, look, when you're in times of uncertainty, people want to buy real physical assets and not, they're not as attracted to more dubious paper assets or just more speculative things because things are uncertain, you know? And the reality is, is gold's been around forever. You know, the market for gold has been around far longer than any other thing that we've created. I mean, it's just the market for it existed for a long time. Over a long period of time, we can look at the gold chart and see that it just goes up into the right, you know?

And I think we're just, you know, we're in one of those times. We're in a period of high inflation. And, you know, in the 70s, we had high inflation coming and going, like in these waves and look at what gold did, right? It just went parabolic. So when you're in times of macro uncertainty, people tend to favor hard assets. And I think that's the reason why gold has done so well. But your narrative, that's the exact same case as Bitcoin. That's what people say about Bitcoin.

The exact same thing you said about gold is the case people investors make for Bitcoin. I mean, have you ever looked at sort of a Bitcoin goal? People make that case, but it doesn't mean it's true, right? Like Bitcoin is a risk asset, right? Like, it's not a risk off asset. It is always traded like a risk on asset. It's always traded like a levered version of the NASDAQ, right? Like, if you look at, let me see if I have it,

if you look at the correlation, I mean, over a certain timeframes, everything just seems correlated, right? In bull markets. But if you were to look at the correlation over the last 365 days, between Bitcoin and, or let's just look at the total crypto market cap. So the total crypto market cap against gold, the correlation is only 0.23, right? Like not, it's a very low correlation against nickel and copper.

I mean, nickel, it's negatively correlated. For a lot of these metals, it's just very, it's a very low number in terms of the positive correlation. It's not really that meaningful unless it's closer to like 0.7 or 0.6.6. 0.2. It just means there's not really a great correlation there. So I think that like, you know, and if you look at like total market caps correlation with the S&P, it's at 0.61, right? So that's a little bit more meaningful. I just, I don't think that you can look at Bitcoin and say that it trades like gold because

it never really has. In fact, in 2019, Bitcoin topped when gold broke out. right? So like when gold does very, very well, crypto does not do well, right? And that's kind of how it's always been. It's just been that like there's been this narrative of like, oh, it's digital gold. So that implies that if gold does well, Bitcoin will do well. But Bitcoin is traded a lot closer to the NASDAQ than it has gold. And I mean, I don't, again, like I don't make that rule. That's just the reality that we're in. Would you say then like Bitcoin is almost its own kind of third thing? It definitely doesn't trade like gold.

It trades more like stocks, but it doesn't trade exactly like stocks. It's its own separate thing. It trades further up the risk curve than stop. But that's why in a bull market, like this bull market, Bitcoin went up 700% or more. The stock market only doubled, right? So, like, it's just further up the risk curve.

And all coins are even further up the risk curve than Bitcoin. but just because they're further up the risk curve doesn't mean they're always going to rally, right? So, you know, I think that it's further up the risk curve, therefore it tops out earlier, right? Like it shows weakness earlier when the macro economy starts to falter. But when the macro economy starts to look good again,

Bitcoin will likely bottom sooner, if that makes sense. It does. Ben, this has been a pleasure. I mean, last kind of question, really, to wrap this up is if what you're saying could be the case does come to be, it's going to require a lot more patience from crypto investors who previously maybe are not used to having patience. And a certain number of investors in this asset class may be scratching their heads and say, why should we stick with crypto? Do you have an answer to that?

Why should investors stick with crypto? And what should they be thinking about this point in this cycle? what should they be doing with their time and their resources? I think it makes sense not to marry an asset class. Like, I have positions in gold and silver and palladium and uranium and stocks and index funds and other things. Like, I think it makes sense not to limit yourself to any individual asset class. But I will say, usually the time to buy crypto is like halfway, starting halfway through

the midterm year, through the end of the. the midterm year. So, like, if you're an investor and you're like, all right, well, how do I get an allocation? When do I want to buy crypto? Usually the midterm year is the worst year, or starting in Q4, the post-tapping year, going into the mid-term year, that's the worst time that then leads to questions like these, right? So then it usually leads to negative price action, and there's negative price action associated with it. The market usually ends up bottoming out. I think the reason to have crypto in your portfolio long term is that when we are in a bull market, like especially something like Bitcoin

can drastically outperform the stock market just like it did this cycle. But when if Bitcoin can go up several hundred percent more than stocks, it can also drop a lot more in a bare market, right?

So that's kind of where we are right now. I think we're in a bare market but it doesn't mean that the bull market will never come back. And when it does come back again, which hopefully it does, I think Bitcoin will outperform once again. But admittedly, I think that we're a little bit of ways off from that.

So how are you playing this? How should people play this? So sometime in 2026 could be a good point to enter with some more to continue accumulating. Right? That's a time-based dimension. Is there a price-based dimension to this? Like at what point does Ether get cheap enough for you to enter? What about Bitcoin?

I think when Ethereum's in the regression ban, usually that's a good time to accumulate it. that's when I bought it back in April. Yeah, I mean, with Bitcoin in the midterm year, normally it goes to the 200-week moving average. That tends to be a good time to accumulate Bitcoin. Is that around like 50 or 60K right now? It's approaching 60, but I mean, it'll be sometime, it might be mid-60s or something,

70K maybe by the time Bitcoin reaches it. Like, I don't know exactly when, but these are all just, you know, there's times to get exposure, you know, usually sometime mid to late midterm year is a good time. So we'll see. We'll see if it plays out like it normally does. Ben, this has been great.

How can folks follow your work, stay in touch? Yeah, I'm on my YouTube channel, Benjamin Cowen, Twitter, at IntoCryptoverse, and then I have my website Into the Cryptoverse.com. We actually also launched Benjamin Cowan.com as well, but it's kind of under construction still. So maybe just go to Into the Cryptoverse.com. But really, I think the best place to go to is just my YouTube channel. Amazing. And many of the charts we saw was actually into the Cryptoverse platform. So a ton of resources there for you. Bankless Nation. Got to let you know, of course, none of this has been financial advice. Crypto is risky. You can lose what you put in. But we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. But we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.