Ben Cowen Says You Have Permission to be Bullish

Ben Cowen is back on Bankless after publicly admitting one of his key Bitcoin calls was wrong. What changed? Ben and David unpack the breakout that challenged his bear-market thesis, whether the four-year cycle is still intact, why Bitcoin is shrugging off a macro environment Ben expected to pressure it, and the crucial difference between easier monetary policy and genuinely abundant global liquidity. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔓NEAR | TRADE CONFIDENTIALLY, GET 20% BACK https://bankless.cc/near2026 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless 👑BANKLESS CONTENT MCP https://www.bankless.com/premium --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Ben Cowen Admits What He Got Wrong 3:30 Did the Bear Market End Too Easily? 6:06 Why This Bear Market Looks Different From 2022 9:59 Is the Four-Year Cycle Still Alive? 12:27 What an Early Low Means for the Next Bull Market 14:02 Why Altcoins Are Already Moving 19:15 Monetary Policy vs. Global Liquidity 22:56 Does Altseason Need a Crisis? 28:13 Why Liquidity Could Stay Tight 31:56 Can Bitcoin Catch Up to Stocks? 34:41 Five Years of Restrictive Conditions 37:27 Is Retail Finally Coming Back? 45:46 Bitcoin Defies the Macro Setup 48:47 The Weekly Bitcoin Close That Matters 53:43 Building a Conference Around Disagreement --- RESOURCES Ben Cowen https://x.com/benjamincowen --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I gotta be honest, like I, I'm very confused and I, this is the thing though, David, I mean, you, you've probably gone through this before where like the market just doesn't make sense to sometimes like, you know, like it, it like, it's like, why is, you know, last cycle, why was Ethereum trading, you know, so low when Bitcoin was so high, right? Like why? There's so many different times in, in, you know, markets where it doesn't make sense, but markets don't have to make sense, you know? I mean, maybe, maybe crypto was pricing all this stuff in before it happened.

• 0:33David Hoffman?

  Bankless Nation, it is an interesting time in the market. There appears to be an inflection point with the sentiment, the bullishness around the market. And so we're bringing back on Ben Cowen from the Cryptoverse. Ben, welcome back to Bankless.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Thanks, Sean. A pleasure to be here as always.

• 0:47David Hoffman?

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

• 1:25Speaker 00

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

• 2:06Speaker 00

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

• 2:47Speaker 00

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

• 3:31David Hoffman?

  Just to, just to emphasize what, um, what you're saying, really it was about the middle of the year, the, the timeframe around now about being bullish. You go onto crypto Twitter, everyone's very, very bullish and excited. There's a lot of momentum. There's a lot of happiness in, in the market. And that's, that's the part where you weren't expecting where, sure, even in bear markets, we can go up 30%, uh, but we kind of did it twice. Bitcoin kind of did it twice from, um, uh, 63K up to 77K and then up to 80, 85K again. That second move feels a little soon in the bear market. And if you, if you, if you are in the opinion that actually the, the low is behind us and we're resuming the next phase of the cycle, and then you look

• 4:15David Hoffman?

  at the length of that bear market that we've had so far, it's short and it's easy and it's not that painful. And that's like the unique odd thing that I think people like you and even people like everyone, I think are really contending with right now.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it, it's kind of the same length of the 2019 bear market, um, about nine months, which, you know, I think I've made that comparison on your channel before. But the reason why I thought that, you know, and I still honestly have a hard time kind of coming to terms of, the reason I thought it would, it would still last a year, uh, was because in 2019, when it only lasted nine months, we also had price-based capitulation, right? Where there is a huge drop and it was also accompanied by a large, uh, a large increase in volume. Um, and a lot of the prior lows in the bear markets have, have, in the bear markets have ended when there was a massive spike in volume and we just haven't had that. Um, I mean, the counterpoint, of course, is if we topped on apathy, right? If we don't top with a lot of

• 5:12Speaker 00

  volume, maybe we don't have to bottom with, with a lot of volume. So, yeah, I mean, right, right now, I, I think that I have to just be a student of the chart and say, it, it doesn't make sense to me. Like it frankly doesn't. I mean, with, uh, with the long end going up and, you know, energy prices heading higher, uh, the dollar heading higher. To me, it makes sense to just kind of go and get your typical Q4 drop, but you know, the market does not have to conform to my expectations. And as it stands right now, it's not, it's not conforming to my expectations because we're trading at like, you know, 85,000. Um, at least that's where it was or when I checked earlier. So, you know, I don't, that, that's kind of where I am. And I'm, I'm basically

• 5:53Speaker 00

  now the opinion that as long as, as long as Bitcoin can hot, can kind of hold above 83K, then it's hard, it's hard to be, you know, deterministically bearish, right? It's, it's a lot harder to sort of be in that camp.

• 6:06David Hoffman?

  One thing I want to check with you is something that does make sense to me, and that is comparing last bear market to this bear market and the congruence with the real world events found in each bear market. So last bear market was really bad. Uh, Bitcoin fell below the 200-week moving average for the better part of a year, like 270 days. It was 30% below the 200-week moving average. I think that was pretty idiosyncratic in Bitcoin's history to be that far below the 200-week for that long. And then also we had three really bad events. You had Terra Luna, you had 3Rs Capital, we had FTX, so much contagion that we had to heal from. And then we had the Gary Gensler era. And so like, if you just look at the bottom of the Bitcoin chart, it's down bad, it's long, it took a long time to recover.

• 6:49David Hoffman?

  And if you compare to this, this era, we, we touched the 200-week, we were briefly below it by a few single-digit percentages, not really for that long. And then we were only there for just like a very short number of days by comparison, something like 100 days rather than the 270 of like last bear market. And if you look at the sins that we've had to pay for as an industry, it's really just sailor selling Bitcoin below his average buy price. And there's not, there's not really a congruence with Terra Luna, 3Rs Capital, FTX. Instead of Gary Gensler, we have, you know, the most favorable regulatory conditions of all time. And our bear market correspondingly is just not that bad. So these things do match. We have fewer sins to pay for, less time at or below the 200-week moving average. To me, that

• 7:33David Hoffman?

  feels pretty explanatory about the differences between these two bear markets. When I, when I say this, what do you think about? How do you react?

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, historically, buying Bitcoin around the 200-week moving average works out pretty well. And then last cycle, we, you know, we went pretty far below it, which was somewhat abnormal. Uh, we don't really usually, usually do that. So, I mean, I, you know, as far as, as far as I'm concerned, what I, what I, what I think the right approach to crypto has been, and hopefully will continue to be, is just start, start buying in the second half of the midterm year and you're often rewarded. You know, I mean, I did it in 2018 and 2022, and I got wrecked in Q4 after buying in the summer. Um, and then this time, my biggest regret was that, you know, in July, basically the, I, I gave myself the, what I told myself I would do, I would buy in the second half of the midterm year as long as Bitcoin was

• 8:26Speaker 00

  below the 0.3 risk level, which is the risk metric that I use to navigate, you know, to buy Bitcoin. And I did do that, but it only lasted for five days, right? So it wasn't a very long time for me to accumulate. Like it was, it was some time, but not a lot. Um, and so, I mean, I guess that's kind of the important part of it is, you know, when the opportunities arise, like to, you know, to take more advantage of them and, and, you know, sometimes just kind of lump summing, I guess, is, is more advantageous than, than DCing, because you can see just how little time we spent down at, at those levels. So, yeah, I mean, last cycle, we had the, the collapse of FTX. Um, and, and you could argue that it was like a, uh, sort of like a dislocation event where it took Bitcoin kind of lower

• 9:08Speaker 00

  than perhaps it really needed to go. Uh, and, and this cycle, you know, we did have sailor selling, but we haven't really had a sort of like a dislocation event that is, um, that is kind of comparable, I feel like, to, to what FTX was. And I mean, now, now with, with Bitcoin, I mean, the, the closest, the, the, the main thing I think crypto has to at least consider in Q4 is just if the long end goes up, is that going to put pressure in any way? Cause normally you would expect the long end going higher to pressure long-duration assets the most. And that would be like, you know, cryptocurrencies is, is one of those. Um, but

• 9:49Speaker 00

  it's completely shrugged it off, right? Completely shrugged it off. And so, uh, I mean, that's an example of, of just having to like, respect the chart rather than to put too much faith in, in the macro.

• 9:59David Hoffman?

  What do you think about the four-year cycle then these days? Uh, even, even in the condition that we do get a higher low, uh, in Q4 around the midterms, kind of what you're saying, the window, what I'm hearing you say is the window is still somewhat open for that possibility. Maybe the lower low in Q4 is starting to look pretty not likely, but in the, on the conditions of a higher low in, uh, around Q4, around the midterms, still nonetheless, the four-year cycle would have been something like a three and a half year cycle. Uh, is that significant at all? Do we care about the cycles? How do you think about the cycles these days?

• 10:33Speaker 00

  I mean, with the S and P, you know, I mean, it, it kind of has a four-year cycle as well historically. And, you know, through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, then we had a low in 2014, 2018, 2022. Um, I, I think that, you know, with, with stocks, if you go back and look at the 1960s, 1970s, it would, it would often bottom in Q4, but occasionally it would bottom earlier in the year, right? Like occasionally bottom like May or June. Um, but I still feel like it's sort of representative of four-year cycle. I think a lot of people would have a hard time accepting that. It'd be like, well, no, the four-year cycle is dead if you don't find a low in Q4. But like, I look at the stock market throughout those decades and still consider it to be a four-year cycle, even though occasionally the low was in like earlier in the year.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  That is kind of my interpretation of it, but I, I, I think that, you know, if someone wanted to take the other side of that, they could just simply say, well, you know, that's kind of like coping and it's not really true. But, you know, as it relates to the 200 week moving average, if you think about it, like we, during the midterm year, we went below the 50 week, below the 100 week, and then to the 200 week. And even below the 200 week, which is what we always do in the midterm year. So it's kind of hard to say like, it didn't work out, right? Like the, the four year cycle failed when Bitcoin still ended up dropping below the 200 week moving average, which is something that many people thought wouldn't happen this year. So I, I, I think it's mixed and I think if there's going to be a reason to continue the debate as to whether, you know, whether that is the four year cycle or not.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Like I tend to be more so in the camp that it is still indicative of a four year cycle, but I, I could, I could understand why some people might not necessarily agree with that.

• 12:09David Hoffman?

  Yeah. I think if somebody wanted to call the four year cycle dead, we would need a lot more salient evidence and more of it. So like 3.5 is still pretty close. And then also we're going to need that multiple instances in a row to have conviction around that.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  And Bitcoin tops when it always tops. I mean, you know, from that, from that perspective, it really didn't change.

• 12:27David Hoffman?

  What do you make of the fact that Bitcoin from top to bottom dropped 53%, which is the smallest that it's ever dropped top to bottom, which is expected. This has always been the way the Bitcoin has behaved over the cycles. But does this make you re-rate Bitcoin's next possible highs in any particular way?

• 12:47Speaker 00

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

• 13:28Speaker 00

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

• 14:02David Hoffman?

  There's already been like a, quite a bit of froth in the market, like in specific assets. And so there are some specific assets that have done very, very well. Hyper liquid comes to mind, VVV lighter, uh, near, a lot of these assets are up, up bigly. A backpack, for example, is up 50% today. And so some assets are getting a lot of movement in the middle of the market. The blue chips not responding in the same way. So like, yeah, we're talking about maybe some early unexpectedly, unexpected bullishness, a little bit early on the Bitcoin chart. But ultimately at the end of the day, it's still kind of just like not moving all that hard. Is there any signal there that some tokens in crypto are up, up bigly, pushing all time highs?

• 14:47David Hoffman?

  Zcash, I didn't even mention is, is putting on $28 billion in, inside of just like a year. And so there's been some incredible wealth gained despite Bitcoin only being up like a total of like 12 or 13% so far in the last like three months. What do you make of this?

• 15:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, I think all coins are running because monetary policy is, is not restrictive right now. I think that's kind of where, where, what it comes down to. I, if you think about it for, from 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, monetary policy was actually really restrictive because the Fed funds rate was above what I consider to be the neutral rate. So if you approximate the neutral rate as the two year treasury yield in the United States, uh, monetary policy was big, Fed funds rate was basically above that level for the entire duration of the cycle. And therefore because of that, altcoins underperformed essentially for the entire duration of that cycle. But right now, the Fed funds rate is at 4% and the two year yield is at almost 4.9%.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  So right now you could argue the Fed funds rate is still 90 basis points away from actually being restrictive. And you can see like, as you mentioned, like altcoins are wasting no time in, uh, in, in sort of taking advantage of that. So if, if they were to get back to a more restrictive stance, then in like, but I'm, that could certainly affect all coins. But as it stands right now, if the status quo remains unchanged, if the two year yield remains unchanged, which it won't, like it will change. But if, let's say it stays constant, and if you look at like expectations for how long it will take the Fed to get there, that's not going to happen until say April, as it stands right now, or even June, I believe.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  So, you know, I, I think there's the argument that altcoins are, are kind of feeling that, that monetary policy is not as tight. As it's not as restrictive, liquidity is still restrictive, but not like, but, but the, the central bank balance or the, the Fed funds rate is, is not. And so of course, altcoins are sort of taking advantage of that. I mean, what's really interesting is, um, if you look at like alt Bitcoin pairs, I think, I think I've shared that on your, on your channel before, like the alt Bitcoin pair chart. Like it hasn't really even made much of a move, right? And that's kind of the crazy thing. Like I could share my screen and show that.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  But here, if you look at, at alt Bitcoin pairs, I mean, it's, I mean, we haven't even taken out the summer high, right? Like it's still, it, it still looks like you would never, you would never look at what's happening now. If you look at certain altcoins, you could be like, all right, this is, this is like, uh, this is really crazy and, and whatnot. But if you were to look at this chart, it's not necessarily any different than like every other little rally that we've had by all Bitcoin pair, right? And at least not at this point, right? And, and the thing is, is the, the major rallies by alt Bitcoin pairs that you see in 2021 and 2017, they didn't occur until after Bitcoin had a euphoric rally. And Bitcoin hasn't had a euphoric rally, right? Like it's still hanging out at around $85,000.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  And, and so you would argue that in order for Bitcoin, in order for it to have sort of like a true durable rotation into altcoins, Bitcoin would need to be a lot higher than it is, than it is right now. And, and people would have to be convinced that Bitcoin has topped. The reason why there was no rotation into altcoins in 2025 was because we topped on apathy. There was not really, it was never really obvious, the majority of market participants that we had actually topped, right? It was never obvious. So why, why would people sell their Bitcoin for altcoins if they keep, if they think Bitcoin's going to keep going up? Whereas if you, if you trigger all those top indicators, like the terminal price and the, you know, the NVRB score is going to the roof and the, all the on chain networks are going through the roof.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  And people are convinced that Bitcoin's topped, then they rotate into altcoins. And then you get these massive rallies by alt Bitcoin pairs. But ever since, because we haven't had that, every single rally we've had by alt Bitcoin pairs has just, I mean, still the, the chart is still kind of trending down, right? Like it, it hasn't necessarily given the indication that it's going to just completely spike upwards and, and, you know, and, and really take everyone by surprise. And not, again, I'm not, and I said the same thing last cycle. You can have rallies with altcoins, right? Like we're not, I'm not saying you can't have rallies. It's just that until you have a euphoric rally by Bitcoin, you shouldn't expect a longer rotation into altcoins to occur.

• 19:15David Hoffman?

  I see. Something you said, I want to double tap on. You talked about how we have had more permissive monetary policy as of late, giving oxygen for altcoins to run. But we haven't had a lot of liquidity. There hasn't been a lot of liquidity injection. Does liquidity correlate to Bitcoin returns while permissive monetary policy more correlates to altcoin returns? Or did I just read into something that's not there?

• 19:37Speaker 00

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

• 20:22Speaker 00

  And, and you were, you were in crypto back in, uh, in 2018 and 2019. And you saw, do you remember the 2019 bull market where Bitcoin kind of like outperformed most everything else?

• 20:35David Hoffman?

  Oh yeah. Like the middle of the year, kind of like, it was like the ghost bull market where like Bitcoin went to like 14K, Ethereum went to like $450. And everyone thought it was on and it was the biggest bear, uh, bull trap of all time.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Right, but the reason, the reason why, the reason why back then there was no rotation into altcoins is because for the same reason today, right? There just wasn't enough for what liquidity was really low. And so if you zoom in here, you can see back then that liquidity topped in March 2018, and it was still well below those highs for several years after that, right? And throughout that entire period, altcoins underperformed Bitcoin. It wasn't until you had this massive liquidity crisis, you had the pandemic. It wasn't until that forced the money printers to come back on, that in 2020, that's when altcoins really started to, to durably outperform. And there's a chart that kind of helps explain.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  If you look at, uh, it's called the Advanced Decline Index. And we're going to look at the Advanced Decline Index of the top 100 cryptocurrencies. It's been trending down since 2021, meaning that like most cryptocurrencies have been going down rather than up since 2021. The time that everyone wants to get back to is 2020 and 2021, where in early 2021, where this thing was trending up, where everything was going up, right? Like Bitcoin is going up.

• 21:55David Hoffman?

  A true alt season, yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  A true, yeah. But the problem is, we didn't get that until after there was a crisis to then justify the money printing, which then allow global net liquidity to surge to new all-time highs. So we're in this like catch 22, where as long as there's not a crisis, there's no reason for liquidity to really ramp up. And, and so because of that, it doesn't mean you can't have bull markets. We had a bull market for three years, not too long ago, despite restrictive liquidity conditions. Um, so it doesn't mean you can't have a bull market. It just means that the returns are probably not going to be as impressive. But eventually, the, the money printers will come back on, right? Like, we know that because that's the only way they seem to be able to solve our problems. And so eventually, like, those types of market conditions will come back.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  But I don't think it's going to happen until there's a reason for that. So in the meantime, you can still have moves in altcoins, you can still have moves in Bitcoin, but I wouldn't expect a full-blown alt season when global net liquidity is, is, is much lower than it was in 2021, 2022.

• 22:57David Hoffman?

  Is what you're saying is that the people who are wishing for an alt season there, by proxy, wishing for some sort of crisis to happen too? So maybe they shouldn't do that?

• 23:05Speaker 00

  And that was, that was what I kind of kept saying last cycle, um, was like, in order for people to get what they want, you have to have a crisis. But how, but crypto wouldn't hold up well in a crisis. So like, think about what crypto did during the pandemic, right? Like, it dropped a ton. So in order to get an alt season, in my opinion, and I could, I could be wrong, right? I mean, we already established I was wrong about Bitcoin taking out the May high, which it already did. So I don't want to imply that I, I, I can't be wrong about this too. But in order, in order to have that, it's kind of like, you have to go down. You remember last cycle with Ethereum? I kept sort of screaming that Ethereum had to go home and like, everyone thought it was crazy. You know, like, why don't you just shut up about this?

• 23:43David Hoffman?

  And you were wrong for a really, really long time, and then you were right.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Right, but, but, but the point is, is, is it finally went home. And I, and I think I even came on your show and said, I was like, in order for Ethereum to go to all-time highs, it needs to go home first, right? And then right after it went home, it actually did go to an all-time high. But unfortunately, the four-year cycle kind of like stopped it from really continuing beyond that. And we just, Ethereum just ran out of time to run because the, the midterm year kind of arrived and, and, and Q4 of the, of the post-having year arrived. So that's sort of the argument for alt season is you can't have it until there's a crisis. And there's not going to be a crisis until there's a re, until, until stocks drop, right? And stocks aren't going to durably drop until, until there's a reason for them to.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  And, and a lot of that is related to the AI trade, right? And so as long as, as long as this build-out in AI continues, and there's not really a crisis over there, if you look at the stock market, uh, the top seven or the mag seven, I think make up like some 35% of the overall S and P 500, because it's weighted by market cap. So if the AI trade were to ever struggle and the wind comes out of those most concentrated names first, that could then lead to a reason to turn the printers on. But yeah, it's like, it's how do you, how would crypto escape, um, you know, not dropping during that crisis? And that's why it makes it such a hard cycle, a hard market. And that's why it was a hard market last cycle too, is because everyone kind of knows

• 25:13Speaker 00

  in order to have that, you have to drop. So then it keeps some people from buying, but that doesn't mean you can't have a bull market, just have, kind of have more realistic expectations of what's possible.

• 25:23David Hoffman?

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• 26:05David Hoffman?

  $30 billion cross-chain, uses post-quantum signatures, and has run over five years on mainnet with zero downtime. Near.com is the best way to be on-chain and be in control. Get 20% of your trading fees back on near.com using the Bankless link in the show notes, not investment advice. Bankless Nation, we've built something for you. Introducing the Bankless MCP. ChatGPT and Claude are great at a lot of things, but ask them anything beyond the basics of crypto about protocol mechanics, tokenomics, or just what happened last week in crypto, and the gaps will start to show. The problem is context. Bankless, on the other hand, has spent almost a decade building one of the deepest archives of crypto data anywhere. More than 2,000 podcast transcripts, 10,000 articles, and countless conversations with the people actually building this industry.

• 26:48David Hoffman?

  And now we've structured all of that data into the Bankless MCP. So you can go and connect it to your Claude or ChatGPT, and suddenly your AI can answer your crypto queries with the entire Bankless archive behind it. And every new Bankless article or episode gets added automatically, so the context keeps staying up to date. The Bankless MCP is exclusively available to Bankless Premium subscribers. So you can go to bankless.com, upgrade to premium, and connect the MCP in just a few minutes, and all of a sudden, your crypto queries to your AI LLM, whatever you use, will get a thousand times better. So go check it out. There is a link in the show notes, and once you become a Bankless Premium member, you can hop into the Bankless Discord and let me know how you like it. Some exciting news. We are launching a new podcast to help people figure out the crypto cycle, how to navigate it.

• 27:31David Hoffman?

  The best crypto cycle investor I know, his name is Michael NATO, he runs the DeFi Report. This is the guy that sent me a sell alert before the 10-10 price drop happened. His cycle analysis has been absolutely on point. I've been following him for years. And this year, we started recording weekly podcast episodes. Each one, we get into his portfolio, what he's holding, the market structure, entry targets, fair market value of Bitcoin and Ether, and where we are in the cycle. There's new episodes that are released every Wednesday. They're 30 minutes, they're short, they're punchy. I think this crypto cycle is harder to navigate than most, so let's do it together. Go subscribe to this podcast, search the DeFi Report, wherever you get your podcasts, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or find a link in the show notes, there's a new episode waiting for you now. Well, one thing I do notice about this global net liquidity chart that you've

• 28:16David Hoffman?

  got is that the, the red line, the liquidity line, the one that, you know, goes through the moon right during COVID.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 28:23David Hoffman?

  The only reason why it is flat now, and it's been flat since 2022, is because of the crisis in the first place. But if you, this, this chart goes all the way back to 2007, and up to that point is just a pretty solid linear slope up and to the right. And so, you know, what's stopping it from just kind of, you know, being flat for a while as we, the dust settles from like the greatest monetary expansion event ever? And like, maybe it just takes five, 10 years, I don't know. But like, why, why doesn't it also just slowly start grinding up into the right as it had from 2007?

• 28:57Speaker 00

  It probably will, right? But, but, but the point is, is like, you're, people should temper their expectations for like a rotation into, into like alt season, if it is just a sort of a slower expansion. Because, you know, in order to get what you saw in 2020, 2021, I, I would argue you would need, you would need true ample liquidity coming in. If it's just a slow grind to the right, up into the right, that's different. But right now, you know, the reasons why it's so low is because a lot of central banks embarked on quantitative tightening for so long, right? And, and now the reason why it's dropping is not because of quantitative tightening, but it's because the dollar is going up. Because if you think about it, in order to have this chart, we have to convert all foreign currencies into the dollar, right?

• 29:40Speaker 00

  So that we have a common denominator to add up. And if the dollar goes up, then that means the relative, the purchasing power of dollar, of, of currencies worldwide goes down. Therefore, that's what can kind of keep this from, from really moving up in the short term, is if the dollar continues to show strength, which the dollar likely will continue to show strength, uh, for a while, because we're still trying to figure out how many rate hikes we need in order to actually kind of bring inflation back to, you know, so, back down to 2%. So I, I don't really think that this is going, I don't really think that global net liquidity is going to new all-time highs, um, anytime soon. And even a 20% drop in stocks would likely not move the needle.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  I mean, we had a 20% drop in stocks in 2025, and net liquidity still stayed really, really low. So, yeah, I don't, I, I think in, if you don't have a crisis, there's no reason. And you can see with the crisis in 08, this thing moved up a lot, right? Like, it, it really started to increase. And, and so if you, if you actually take this... Amongst other things, you can create a liquidity risk metric. Okay. And it looks like this. And so what this shows is that liquidity conditions are still really tight. Right. And they have been since 2022. And if you think about it, the only other time there was a a top on apathy was in 2019, when also conditions were really, really tight.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Bitcoin was started in 2009, when liquidity conditions were really, really loose. The only time that we've seen conditions this tight was before Bitcoin even existed. So that's the reason why we're in, we're kind of in uncharted territory for Bitcoin. We haven't seen restrictive policy for so long. And but this chart, if you, if you think about it, and I know like when Bitcoin's going up right now, like it's hard to be like, oh, well, no policies lose, like just look at everything that's happening. But if we take a step back and we say, what has Bitcoin accomplished relative to the S and P 500 over the last five years? You can see that Bitcoin is, is it the same valuation against the S and P that it was at in 2021?

• 31:46Speaker 00

  And, you know, 2022 and, and 2024, 2025, it hasn't really moved. And so the reason it hasn't really moved is because liquidity conditions are much tighter.

• 31:56David Hoffman?

  Hmm. Interesting. Is there any reason to suspect that Bitcoin would be lagging behind the S and P? And it has some catch up to do, or is that just a tope?

• 32:04Speaker 00

  I think eventually it will outperform the S and P again. But I think in order for it to, and that doesn't mean it can't be like last cycle. It did outperform the S and P for a few years, but it just didn't. It didn't really go up nearly as much as it normally does is the point. So if you think about like where it is right now, isn't where I'm not saying it can't go up. Right. I'm just saying that it's unlikely to have that large catch up trade until, until liquidity comes back down. And I'm not saying it doesn't have to go back to zero. Right. Like maybe, maybe it drops just back to like point five, point six. And that can maybe be enough because in 2017, when we had an alt season, liquidity risk was just around, was around point five, right? Point five, point six, which was reasonable, right?

• 32:49Speaker 00

  That's kind of like an area where there's liquidity is not nearly as tight. But when it's at point eight, point nine, I have to be a little bit skeptical as to the, the strength of, of, of sort of the, and by the way, I mean, you, you mentioned several altcoins earlier that are rallying. As I've said in 2023, 2024, et cetera, like I'm not talking about your altcoin right to the audience. Like, I don't like, yes, a lot of altcoins are going up. And yes, as long as Bitcoin holds above the May highs, they will likely continue to go up.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  So, and I'm not trying to take anything away from that. I don't want to discourage people from taking on risk because the liquidity risk is high. I'm just trying to communicate to people, hey, don't expect 100x return on, on some of these altcoins. At this stage, it, by the way, David, if, if liquidity risk were at zero right now, and, and, you know, we were in like a, a bear market, like a massive drop, like I would be banging the drums.

• 33:47David Hoffman?

  And backing up the truck. Right. Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and a lot of people think I'm like the Grinch when it comes to altcoins, you know? But if you think about it, ever since my channel has been really popular, right? For like the last five years, liquidity conditions have been really, really tight. People don't remember what I was like in 2019 and 2020, because my channel was so small. But back then I was all about these riskier assets, right? I was all about them and, and kind of banging the drum. Hey, you know, go buy Ethereum, go, because when Ethereum was a hundred dollars, I'm like, this is, I mean, the first video on my channel is when, is, is about Ethereum and talking about how undervalued it was. So it's not that I'm like the Grinch. I just, I'm trying to recognize that in order for the, for the riskier assets to do well,

• 34:33Speaker 00

  there's certain types of liquidity conditions and monetary policy conditions that allow them to do well. And then certain conditions that allow them to kind of underperform.

• 34:41David Hoffman?

  Yeah, there's a lot of metrics and a lot of things I've been looking at, charts I'm looking at that are five years old. And what I mean by that is like the precedent of the average crypto investor based off of the charts that we look at. It's really started and at the end of the COVID bubble, like 2021 to 2022. Maybe a lot of us got into crypto during the COVID bubble and that imprinted upon us some unrealistic expectation. But ever since 2022, we have been in a restrictive environment. All coins have bled. ETH BTC is almost at a five year downtrend, five year downtrend, a decade, a half a decade of going down. And this is now the new normal for I think the average crypto investor.

• 35:24David Hoffman?

  And so when you show the pretty restrictive liquidity environment for five years, I'm actually kind of just like, well, we've been as investors, we've been living in this restrictive environment for five years. Right. We're, it's like the assets are probably pretty sensitive. If liquidity goes up any more than it has been for the last five years, that would probably be pretty good because we're used to pretty restrictive environments. And so at least maybe that's my, I'm trying to find some silver lining here of just like, hey, like, we've been living in this, in this industry for five years of restriction. I'm not saying that that means that it's going to go down and be in our favor now. But even if it does, imagine the upside there.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I did an interview the other day and, and they were like, you know, they asked me, they're like, I'm guessing, they're like, we don't, you know, people ask about alt season and if it's going to ever happen again. And we're like, we just kind of roll our eyes and, you know, it's never going to happen. And they're like, I'm guessing you think the same. And I'm like, no, I think, I think it will happen again. I just think that, I think that you just can't have it until, until there's a reason for liquidity conditions to be looser. And I, I don't think that's going to happen until, until the AI trade starts to unwind some, you know? And who knows, who knows when that's going to be? I mean, that could be, you know, years from now for all we know, like we have no idea. If, if there were a drop in, in stocks, then that would honestly, like it would, it would hurt crypto in the short term.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  But if anything happened that allowed policy to become a lot more looser, it would be great for crypto. Right. I mean, and I don't like, I don't know at what point we get there. But, and, and I don't think we're going to get there right now. I mean, you can have a drop in stocks, but I don't think you're going to have a reason for the printers to come back on because inflation is getting away from us. And if they turn the, if they turn the printers on, that's just going to lead to a massive wave within. And that, and honestly, like, do we really want that? Like, I mean, is, do we really want our grocery bills to double up just so we can have, you know, a few months where crypto is doing well? I don't really know if it's, if it's worth it.

• 37:26David Hoffman?

  Yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't feel like the right trade. Like everyone wants the upside of 2021 without the downside of 2022. But that's just, you can't have that.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  And this, by the way, this chart here kind of was, I was trying to communicate or visually communicate what you were already telling the audience about how, you know, like look at 2021, there was so much interest in crypto. And then it's just been trending down ever since. And I have a, I think I've shared it with your, with your audience before, like a social risk metric. And what you see is that it's just been trending down since 2021. Like social interest in crypto has only been going down for the last five years. And, you know, you could paint it, you could say it's because of, um, you know, people's fascination with meme coins last cycle. And, you know, you could argue one of the reasons Ethereum underperformed last cycle is because people just got distracted by garbage, right? Like random crap and stuff.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  But yeah, I mean, social interest has been going down for so long. And I keep looking, I keep looking to see if this is ever going to change. And I haven't, I haven't seen it change yet. I would, I would love for it to change because I don't want, like, I don't want the industry to just kind of fade away. Like I want it to come back. I want it to have relevance. But I also haven't seen the evidence yet that retail is coming back.

• 38:39David Hoffman?

  Yeah. I will say anecdotally, anecdotally, I, I use the weekly roll up that I record every Thursday that comes out every Friday with, with Ryan as kind of a barometer because it's, it's so consistent. Like there's, there's no guests, it's just me and Ryan. It's the same show format. We talk about the news and it's been consistent as long as we've done it. So five years. And so I can kind of be able to use that as a barometer. The views are, I'm able to use as a barometer. In the last month or so, views have doubled of the, on the weekly roll up. And that's also indicative of some of the other like more normal content. Like we've had on, uh, Johan Kerbat, uh, five or six times. And the most recent one doubled the views as average. And so I definitely agree with you.

• 39:22David Hoffman?

  I've been seeing it for myself, the downtrend in views ever since 2021, 2022. But recently, I have actually shown, I have seen a changing of the winds, which makes me, you know, makes me bullish, makes me pretty bullish.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Is it, I'm curious, is the doubling, is it higher than it was in, say, like, 2024 and 2025? Or is it still below that?

• 39:41David Hoffman?

  It's high, definitely higher than 2024, 2025. Like, the, the weekly roll up from last week is at 20,000 views. And on a weekly roll up in 2021, 2022, it would have been like 30,000 views. So we are not far off.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Is that on YouTube?

• 39:57David Hoffman?

  It's on YouTube, yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  So I, I should say something, and I, I don't mean to, uh...

• 40:03David Hoffman?

  YouTube, YouTube metrics are different now?

• 40:06Speaker 00

  They are, so...

• 40:07David Hoffman?

  Nah, I was wondering about that.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Would you like me to explain it?

• 40:10David Hoffman?

  Yes, I would, actually.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Okay, so, so my views for, forever, like, I was getting around 100,000 views a video. Now I'm getting like 200,000 views a video. So, starting in August of this year, which is probably exactly when you notice the change. Starting in August, YouTube changed the way they count views. So, previously, they never published what it was previously, but the general consensus among people who made long-form videos was that, um, it took about, like, someone would have to watch your video for about 30 seconds for it to count as a view.

• 40:44David Hoffman?

  And now they lowered it?

• 40:45Speaker 00

  And now, it's like, if they see it for one second, it counts as a view.

• 40:48David Hoffman?

  You know, you know why they did that? Because that's what Elon Musk did with X. Where a view on X, he just, he, Elon Musk pumped the hell out of his metrics to make X look good, and I guess now YouTube has to adapt for view inflation to compete.

• 41:05Speaker 00

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

• 41:46David Hoffman?

  I see.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  It's just that they count the views differently now.

• 41:50David Hoffman?

  Okay, damn, I was, I was worried that that was the bear.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, I don't mean to rain on the parade, but I just, I know, I know that because I just was watching my own views, and I'm like, I know this is not, or, I know organic.

• 42:00David Hoffman?

  I was like, man, is, is attention really coming back into crypto this hard? Because it seems, yeah, well, all right, bummer. Well, so you have this metric where you look at everyone's YouTube views, and so now, now, is that metric kind of just blown up for you because, uh, because the algo changed?

• 42:15Speaker 00

  I can, I can show it, um...

• 42:16David Hoffman?

  Yeah?

• 42:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was, I was sort of showing it earlier, but I didn't, I could zoom in on it more. So here it is, so let me go down, it's YouTube, so YouTube views, and it takes a little while to load, um, I think we actually have your channel.

• 42:30David Hoffman?

  Yeah, it's pulling, yeah, it's pulling a bunch of data.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we can actually look at your channel if you want, um, uh, where is it? Bankless, right here. So, yeah, like, you've had, you had a huge surge, but look when it surged, right around mid-August.

• 42:45David Hoffman?

  Yeah, we also had Tom Leon right then, and he always pumps in a ton of views, uh, but yeah, I, I get your point.

• 42:51Speaker 00

  But if you look at mine as well, um, this big surge here, like, it, like, it started, it started, it started going up a lot in August, right around the time that they changed it. The reason why it dropped a lot in September was because I was out of town, and I just wasn't making as much videos, and so that's why it's not as, as elevated. But if you combine everyone, um, back on here, and you zoom in...

• 43:14David Hoffman?

  Right, yeah, yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty distinct.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  There was an issue in September with the way they were kind of like collecting the views, which is why it went down, but the spike, the spike occurred because of an artificial thing. It's kind of like, it, it's kind of like when you're, um, you know how a lot of, like, the inflation reports or, like, labor market reports are really, really frustrating because they'll change the way they calculate it, and then they expect you to still monitor the same series in the same way? That's what makes it kind of hard now, because I'm, for the social interest, I don't know how to factor that in exactly, like, how do I? I, I probably should scale prior views, like, relative to what we're seeing now, and then maybe have a better understanding of what views are actually doing relative to the past.

• 43:54David Hoffman?

  Yeah, I'd say there's not even a single internet metric that I can really rely on, because even Twitter followers, I'm just like, okay, sweet, I'm getting a growth in Twitter followers, but that's because of AI. Like, AI bots are just, like, through the roof now, and so that, even that metric is all messed up.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Well, actually, we could look, I mean, we could look at other metrics, other social metrics, and see if, if, you know, the, because we could say, all right, YouTube went up, did other platforms go up at some certain amount, right? And so, if you were to look at, look at, like, YouTube subscribers, for instance, like, that didn't change, you still have to hit subscribe, um, so let's see what that's doing. You see this, like, there's...

• 44:27David Hoffman?

  Yeah, that's close to zero, that's, that's close to nothing, yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  So that hasn't really changed, if you look at followers to analysts on Twitter, or X, um, that hasn't really, it, all these charts take forever to load, but, like, that hasn't really changed a whole lot, like, it's still really, really low, it's still well below where it was in 2025 and, and for a lot of 2024. We could even, I don't know who's going to Wikipedia to learn about crypto, like, I don't know many, many people, but that's still really, really low. And then we also have a few other ones, I think, since I've, I've been on your channel, uh, one was, um, uh, Coinbase, I think, uh...

• 45:04David Hoffman?

  Coinbase signups or Coinbase volume?

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, the Coinbase app, I, I think we have a risk metric for us, let me show you. It's like the app rankings, yeah, so...

• 45:13David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  So this, this is the social risk, but here you have Coinbase app rankings, right? And you can see that that's still pretty low right now. Like, it, it actually did get a nice bounce, but it's still really, really low. Um, Google Trends, like, that is still really low, that hasn't changed. And then if you look at, like, followers to Twitter, or followers on X to, like, exchanges and Layer Ones, and analysts, like, they're all still really, really low. So unfortunately, the, the bump we saw on YouTube hasn't really been, you know, corroborated other places.

• 45:47David Hoffman?

  All right, well, I'm glad I got that mystery out of the way. Hopefully, the listeners found that as interesting as I did, because I've definitely been looking for some answers around that, so thank you. Let's get back into some macro stuff. I want, I want to get your read on, like, the macro story and just economic health. Uh, one, one of the things that you correctly predicted was that, uh, we were going to get higher energy prices, higher yields, higher raising rates, and then the dollar was, was strengthened. All of those things happened, except the one difference is that Bitcoin just bulldozed through all of those into a higher high.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 46:16David Hoffman?

  What, what do you make of that? I think, like, the market, including the equities market right now, is looking at that, is looking at high rates and getting jittery, but also another part of the market is looking at higher rates and being like, I don't care, I'm going up anyways. How, how are you reading this situation?

• 46:29Speaker 00

  I gotta be honest, like, I, I'm very confused, and I, this is the thing, though, David, I mean, you, you've, you've probably gone through this before, where, like, the market just doesn't make sense to sometimes, like, you know, like, it, it, like, it's like, why is, you know, last cycle, why was Ethereum trading, you know, so low when Bitcoin was so high, right? Like, why, there's so many different times in, in, you know, markets where it doesn't make sense, but markets don't have to make sense, you know? I mean, maybe, maybe crypto was pricing all this stuff in before it happened. I don't really know, all I know for me is that I am confused by what's happening, because the, the hard part for me to accept is that the macro trade was right, right?

• 47:12Speaker 00

  But the things that I said, like, all the things that don't matter were correct, you know? Like, the dollar going higher, energy going higher, yields going higher, the things that people aren't really trading, I mean, I trade energy, so like, I, I, like, that's done well. But for most, for the most part, like, a lot of the viewers are not out there, you know, buying XLE, right, or Exxon, because they're trying to, they're just wanting to buy crypto. Those were all right, and so I thought that that would then affect Bitcoin, and it hasn't, right? Like, it hasn't, and, and I've, I've just forced myself to say, look, as long as we're above 83K, I, I'm gonna have to take a step back on this, on this bear market idea.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  If we get back below 83K on, like, a weekly, if we're back below the May high, then I will still lean into Q4 weakness, but I wouldn't be as deterministic about it being a new low, right? Like, it could just be coming back down, print a higher low. In fact, that would probably be my base case at this point, is if, if that weakness were to actually materialize, because crypto's gone up a lot. I mean, think about how far some of these coins would have to drop in order to put a new low at this point, like, it'd be a massive, massive drop, and I don't know, like, I don't know if that is the most likely outcome with, with where Bitcoin's trading right now, so, um, yeah, I mean, I think that's where I am, and, and I, I'm happy to admit that I don't fully understand it, and I hope that, I hope that people don't, you know, I hope

• 48:39Speaker 00

  people, like, look at that and just recognize that I'm, I'm human and I'm fallible, and that I don't always have the answers to, to what's going on in the markets.

• 48:47David Hoffman?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm trying to not be too inherently bullish about it, but when I see Bitcoin just, again, bulldozing through some really tough macro conditions, I'm like, sick, awesome, that's so bullish, I don't know, it's like hindsight bullish, I'm trying, I, I want it to be forward-looking bullish, because if it, if it continues to bulldoze, and it'll continue to bulldoze, what's up?

• 49:11Speaker 00

  Let me show you something, just, uh, just to keep us a day, okay? Like, just, uh, just, uh, just so that we're not blindly bullish, okay?

• 49:18David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  Because, like, I, like, I really, you know the thing I've wanted ever since 2021? Is to feel, like, with a clear conscience, to be super bullish on the entire industry, you know? Like, and, and just say, like, every, it's gonna outperform the S and P, it's gonna outperform gold, like, like, this is the time to get in the industry. Like, I, I want that, because, like, I want to, I want to root for the market, you know? Like, I didn't, like, why would I spend my entire life making videos about crypto if I hated it, you know? Like, that wouldn't make sense, it'd be, it'd be a lot easier for me to just bull post about altcoins and, and make a lot of people, you know, like me. The, the, the one thing that, like, kind of makes me like, okay, like, what am I, like, am I missing something?

• 50:00Speaker 00

  Is this silver chart from, you know, a decade or two ago, where we set, like, a high, and then we set a low, and then we had this, like, massive surge above the range high? You see that? But then by the end of the week, we were right back below it. And so I, I, I'm trying to like, I don't think that's the base case here. Like, I'm not saying that's the base case. Bitcoin is still trading above the range high. What I'm saying is if Bitcoin were to come back down and close back below the May high and you unwind, it could, I mean, altcoins would unwind a lot faster because they're,

• 50:41Speaker 00

  they're trading, they're trading the Bitcoin's breaking out and the bear market's over. If you get an idea that the bear market is not actually over, then altcoins are going to unwind a lot faster than Bitcoin would. So I would say like, just watch, like, this is all I'm saying, and I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying, watch the weekly candle, because this is where it is. If we close back below 80, what, 82.8K?

• 51:06David Hoffman?

  On the weekly?

• 51:08Speaker 00

  On the weekly. A close below that, which is only a thousand dollars lower than where we are, right? Like, there's not a lot of wiggle room and we still have two days before the weekly close. If we close below that, then I think everyone needs to go take a cold shower and, and, and be like, all right, maybe we have to go down one last time, like, maybe we have to go down again into Q4, okay? And, and from there, hopefully, we can then start a new bull market. That's the only thing I would say. If we accept above it, if we accept above it.

• 51:38David Hoffman?

  If we accept above it on this weekly candle?

• 51:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, then I'm, I'm in the same camp. Like, I'm in the same camp as you. Like, I don't, like, I'm not going to sit here and, and be the Grinch for the entire fourth quarter of the year, right? So by the time your viewers are watching this, well, they'll know, like, they'll know.

• 51:53David Hoffman?

  We're recording this on Friday, September 5th. This is coming out Monday, September 28th. And so the, the weekly candle will have closed 12 hours ago, if you're listening to this Monday morning.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Exactly. So I would say, like, look at the weekly candles and, you know, I would say the most important close is the one coming up. I'm not going to say that you can't have a future one that happened. I mean, at any point, if it happens before, but like, over the next few weeks, like, everything changes, but I would say the most important one would be this one, because if we close above it, I think that's going to be further confirmation to skeptics that the low is in, right? Because now you've got the close above it. Silver didn't get the close above it, right? It was just a wick back up. So if we get the close, more bears become bulls, and it's like a self fulfilling prophecy in a way. If you close below here, think about how like, like, imagine.

• 52:46David Hoffman?

  It got rejected. The, the, the new high got rejected, yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  Right. Imagine for a moment that Bitcoin is now at 79K and all of a sudden, we're going into Q4. It's like, oh crap, like, what if, what if, what if we get the, the Q4 low right after everyone thinks it's not going to happen? That, that's the only thing that's keeping me back, but as I said, I'm not, I'm not going to sit here and, and bang the drum as long as we're above 83K, right? I just want people to watch it and, and to just be willing to pivot from the, the, the bull view quickly, so you're not watching altcoins drop for two or three months and you're wishing you took profits, right? So just watch the weekly close, and I, I don't think you have to front run it. I don't think you have to sit here and be like, oh, let me front run this and go ahead

• 53:34Speaker 00

  and predict what's going to happen. I would say respond to it. If the weekly close happens below it, then pivot back to being bearish going into Q4. And if not, then stay bullish.

• 53:43David Hoffman?

  Ben, incredibly sober analysis. Just, I, we're, it's such a gift to have you in the industry. I appreciate you always coming on and kind of just walking us through so much incredible data. You're incredibly fluent with all of this. You have a conference coming up in Miami on, in November. Talk to me about that.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, basically, you know, I've been to a lot of conferences and the thing I've wanted more than anything is to be able to have people on stage providing their unfiltered opinion about market, and not just crypto, but just markets in general. And, and to not be afraid to kind of say like what their opinion is, because I've been to a lot of conferences and it, and it feels like most of the talks are just, the bear case for Bitcoin is it is going to be in 20, at $20 million in five years. And I'm just like, am I really getting anything out of, out of listening to this talk when I truly, like, I don't think many, I don't think anyone believes that, you know? And I don't really feel like I'm getting anything out of it. So what I wanted to do was, was have people come and provide their opinions about markets, because that's the way we grow and learn is, and, and to not, not assume that everyone's

• 54:43Speaker 00

  opinion is wrong just because it disagrees. Because think about, think about how many times I've been wrong over the last, say, five or six years. And there have been so many times, like recently, right? Like, like with taking out the May high, there have been so many times where I was so convinced that my view was right. And even with Ethereum going home last cycle, like, I was convinced my view was right. And it ended up being right, but it took like, you know, it took two years longer than I thought it would, you know? And, and that's like, I was right in a way, but in another way, I was wrong, because it, it took longer than I thought. So the, the amount of times I've been so convinced I was right, I have to remind myself, I'm going to be wrong again in the future.

• 55:24Speaker 00

  And so I want to hear what other opinions are, so that I can better articulate, or better get a, you know, get a better understanding of, of my, what my own views are. So hopefully, hopefully, we have the conference, we have a lot of different people that provide a lot of different views, and, and then people can like walk away from it, kind of understanding like what the bull case is, what the bear case is, rather than just get one side of the story. Because if you get one side of the story, then that's kind of how you, you, you get wrecked, because everyone's just in on the same trade.

• 55:55David Hoffman?

  The conference is in Miami, November 21st. Where can people get tickets? Is it ticketed event? How do people get access?

• 56:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, just benjamincowan.com and then there's a conference tab. We actually have Sailor, Michael Sailor is going to be speaking at it. Grant Cardone, we got Mark Yusko, I, I think you know Mark Yusko.

• 56:11David Hoffman?

  Yep.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  And Alessio Ristani, he's going to be there. I think he's, he's pretty interesting and has a pretty good take on markets. Jason Pizzino. We got a lot of people that are, are interested in, in coming and talking. We got James Check, he's like a more of an on-chain guy. So we got Mike McGlone, I mean, he's more bearish, but, but again.

• 56:32David Hoffman?

  You need to have both, yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Garrett Salloway, David Lynn, they're coming too. But that's the point, is we, we need, we need, we need everyone, because it's a market. And the market reflects all of our views, not just your views, not just my views, it reflects everyone's views. So I think it's important. And I think like, what I'd like to do is, like, I feel like by listening to like the really, really bullish views and then the really, really bearish views, I think the truth is probably somewhere in between.

• 56:56David Hoffman?

  Yeah. We'll get a link to the conference in the show notes. Ben, thank you so much for coming on.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  Thanks, Johnny.

• 57:02David Hoffman?

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