Ben Cowen Says You Have Permission to be Bullish

Ben Cowen’s permission to be bullish depends on Bitcoin’s weekly close around $82,800, the May high. A close above roughly $83,000 would move him into the bullish camp for Q4 and strengthen the case that the low is in; a close below would make him lean bearish and expect weakness, though his base case would be a higher low rather than a new one. He advises waiting for the weekly close instead of front-running it. His earlier “I was wrong” video acknowledged underestimating the chance Bitcoin would exceed its May high, not making a firm Q4 prediction: after Bitcoin reached $57,000 on July 1, he expected a July rally, which arrived in August.

Cowen says a sustained move above range highs would make a bearish stance harder to defend. He finds it difficult to be deterministically bearish if Bitcoin can hold above $83,000, while a retreat could still produce Q4 weakness without breaking to a new low. He considers buying near Bitcoin’s 200-week moving average historically effective, though he called the previous cycle’s deeper, longer dip below it unusual. His planned buy condition—Bitcoin below his 0.3 risk level—held for only five days in July.

He expects diminishing returns: Bitcoin’s latest peak-to-trough decline was 53%, its smallest such drop, and this cycle’s gain is likely to fall short of the prior cycle’s 7–8x. He still sees the move below the 50-, 100-, and 200-week averages in a midterm year as compatible with a four-year cycle, while conceding that this interpretation is debatable. A roughly three-and-a-half-year cycle is close enough to four years in his view; declaring the cycle dead would require more salient evidence and repeated instances. Buying in the second half of a midterm year has historically been rewarding, but he was badly hurt by Q4 declines after buying in 2018 and 2022. He also notes that the current bear market has lasted about nine months, similar to 2019.

Bitcoin’s strength has surprised Cowen given rising long-term yields, energy prices, and the dollar. Higher yields could pressure crypto as a long-duration asset, but Bitcoin has shrugged them off, reinforcing his view that investors should respect the chart rather than rely too heavily on macro expectations. Global liquidity, measured by aggregating central-bank balance sheets and converting them to dollars, was about $30 trillion in 2021–2022 and about $25 trillion at the time of discussion. Global net liquidity has been flat since 2022, with its recent decline reflecting dollar strength; Cowen does not expect it to reach new all-time highs soon. He said the Fed funds rate was 4% against a two-year Treasury yield near 4.9%, a gap of about 90 basis points, and that restrictive policy might not arrive until April or June if conditions and expectations held.

Altcoins could continue rising if Bitcoin holds above its May highs, but Cowen says altcoin-to-Bitcoin pairs have not exceeded their summer highs and continue to trend down. Durable rotations into altcoins usually follow a substantial, euphoric Bitcoin rally that convinces investors Bitcoin has topped; he attributes the missing 2025 rotation to Bitcoin topping on apathy. Altcoins can rally without a full altseason, but he would not expect a broad 2020–2021-style altseason while liquidity remains far below its earlier highs. The top-100-cryptocurrency Advance-Decline Index has trended down since 2021, and prolonged altcoin underperformance has coincided with low liquidity. A broad altseason might require a crisis that prompts renewed money printing and a surge in net liquidity, though crypto could fall sharply during that crisis. Cowen cited weakness in the AI trade as one possible catalyst, noting that the seven largest S&P 500 constituents account for about 35% of the index.

If Bitcoin’s breakout fails, Cowen warns that altcoins could unwind faster because they are trading on the assumption that the bear market is over. A drop to $79,000 and a possible Q4 low are among the reasons he is not fully committed to the bullish view; he cautions against holding altcoins through a potential two- or three-month decline. He expects Bitcoin to outperform the S&P 500 again, but sees little prospect of a major catch-up move until liquidity eases. He also sees no clear evidence retail interest is returning: social-risk measures have fallen since 2021, while Google Trends, Coinbase app rankings, and several X follower measures remain low. The apparent doubling in YouTube views followed a mid-August change that counted views after about one second rather than roughly 30 seconds, so he says it reflects measurement inflation, not a comparable increase in viewers.