Bitcoin Sweeps The February 2026 Low

Brief Summary

In this video, Benjamin Cowen discusses Bitcoin's market status as it sets new lows, drawing parallels between historical cycles from 2018 and 2019. He assesses the current situation within the context of previous bear markets, emphasizing the likelihood of lower lows in the near future while considering potential recovery patterns.

  • Bitcoin has swept the lows from February 2026, similar to patterns seen in past bear markets.
  • Historical comparisons indicate that Bitcoin could experience lower lows before recovering, as seen in past trends.

Bitcoin's Recent Market Performance

The video begins with Cowen outlining Bitcoin's recent performance, noting it has now reached lows similar to those seen in February 2018 and 2026. He explains that in previous bear markets, Bitcoin often takes several months to establish new lows, making it feel as though the bear market is over prematurely. He compares the current market trends, including hitting the 200-day moving average, to those in 2018 and suggests that the patterns are repeating.

Historical Market Patterns

Cowen points out significant similarities between the current market in 2026 and previous years like 2018 and 2019, specifically referencing low points in February and subsequent patterns in late spring. He shares statistics, stressing that Bitcoin's year-to-date performance aligns with historical averages for midterm election years, indicating it's down about 31%—a typical range for this phase.

Market Sentiment and Future Predictions

He emphasizes that part of the market's feeling of uniqueness stems from the lack of euphoric highs prior to price drops, unlike in previous cycles. Cowen assesses possible future outcomes, positing that the current trajectory could lie somewhere between the events of 2018 and 2019. He acknowledges the uncertainty in predicting the market's next moves but suggests there could be a final low later in the year, likely in October.

Comparative Analysis of Previous Bear Markets

Cowen elaborates on the distinctions and similarities between the bear markets of 2018 and 2019, with a focus on patterns of support and market reactions. He highlights the lack of retail investor participation during this cycle and discusses how broader economic factors, such as monetary policy changes, play a role in shaping Bitcoin's price and market behavior.

Indicators of Market Bottoms

As he explores potential market bottoms, Cowen emphasizes the importance of historical price movements and the likelihood of Bitcoin falling below its realized price during bear markets. He provides examples from past cycles to illustrate that while prices may drop significantly, various market indicators will determine where the lows will settle.

Investment Strategies and Conclusion

In concluding remarks, Cowen suggests investors might benefit from dollar-cost averaging (DCA) after establishing low points in June. He points to the historical trends showing buying in the latter half of the midterm year yields better results than in the earlier half. He reiterates the uncertain nature of current market conditions while advising patience and attention to emerging trends in Bitcoin's price movements.

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Transcript

Full transcript of “Bitcoin Sweeps The February 2026 Low”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.

0:00 Hey everyone and thanks for jumping back into the cryptoverse. Today we're going to talk about Bitcoin and how it has now swept the low from February of 2026. If you guys like the content, make sure you subscribe to the channel, give the video a thumbs up, and also check out the sale on into the cryptoverse premium at into the cryptoverse.com. Let's go ahead and jump in. So, we've talked about this for a while and I I'll go through, you know, my thoughts, but one of the ideas is that often times it can take four or five months for Bitcoin to set new lows in bare markets. And because they can take that long, it can often feel like the bare market is over,

0:48 even when it's not. And if you look at probably one of the best comparisons that we have, February of 2018, Bitcoin set a low and then the next low wasn't set for about 19 weeks. And that occurred in June. And then you look at this cycle, we set a low in February, and then we set another low, a lower low 17 weeks later, again in June. And so there are there continue to be similarities, right? You have February lows in both 2018 and 2026. You then have higher lows in late March, early April. You then go up to the 200 day moving average. Right? We can switch

1:34 this over to the daily. We then go up to the 200 day moving average in both cases. And then from there, Bitcoin goes and puts in a new low in June. Now, this was what I said was sort of my base case coming into this month that we would likely go below the February low. And I think one of the reasons for thinking that was just thinking that a lot of times in these bare markets, people think it's different and and it's usually not. And by setting a new low, it it basically just means that, you know, the bare market was really never over. And and it sort of it it sort of

2:21 redeems everyone who was not willing to start bulling again. It's not like it's rocket science here. I was just sort of recognizing that, hey, Bitcoin normally gets these rallies up to the 200 day moving average in bare markets and and that you should expect Bitcoin to to get rejected from it. Of course, when it happens, people blame Sailor. People blame a lot of a lot of different things. Most most importantly, they don't ever blame themselves uh for for misreading the market. But this is how Bitcoin has normally played out in midterm years. In fact, I know it feels different, but when you look at the year-to- date ROI of Bitcoin compared to the average of prior midterm years, we're literally

3:08 exact basically right at that average. On average, at this point in midterm years, Bitcoin is down about 31%. Right now, Bitcoin is down about 31 32% about 32%. So, this is a pretty normal midterm year for Bitcoin. The reason it feels different is because since Bitcoin topped on apathy rather than euphoria, the big drop at the end of last year wasn't nearly as much because it was an apathetic top. So, this drop was only about a 35% in the at the end of last year. And if you compare that to say a euphoric top like 2017, it was a 70% drop. Now, had

3:55 Bitcoin gone to a euphoric zone, it would have been closer to maybe like 200K. And if Bitcoin had gone to 200K and then dropped to 60K, it would have been a lot more similar to 2018. But because we didn't get that final euphoric rally, there was no rotation into alts. You could argue we didn't get the euphoric rally because of monetary policy and how strict and how tight it's been. Therefore, there was no rotation into altcoins. And so, it feels different because that final rotation never came. But really, it feels a lot like 2019. Because as I've said, there are a lot of similarities between 2026 and 2018, but

4:41 there also are similarities between 2026 and 2019 and and going into 2020. And one of the some of those main similarities include the fact that there was no rotation after Bitcoin topped. Bitcoin also topped on apathy rather than euphoria. And Bitcoin topped in both cases two months before quantitative tightening ended. In 2019, Bitcoin topped in June. QT ended in August. In 2025, Bitcoin topped in October. QT ended in December. If you look at the terminal price for Bitcoin, what you'll notice is that both in 2019 and in 2025, Bitcoin did not reach the terminal price. Again, it's because it

5:27 topped on apathy. When you look at the crypto or when you look at the social risk or sorry, that's the trady one. If you look at the social risk, what you'll see again is that retail never really showed up this cycle. You know, they they also didn't really show up in 2019 either. They didn't really show up this cycle as well. And so those similarities continue to remain intact. So then the question is where do we go from here? Right? Where do we go from here? It's a difficult question to ask to a large extent because when you're in the middle of a capitulation, it's so hard to know, you know, where where the low is. Like no one knows. Um we can guess, but but the truth is is that no

6:14 one knows. And we're sort of at a crossroads right now. And if I had to guess, what'll likely happen is not either of the two examples that I'm going to give you, but probably something somewhere in between. Okay, so there's two things we have to reconcile. Is this 2018 or is it 2019? I have news for you. This may come as a surprise. It's 2026. Okay. So, what we can do is take elements from 2018 and 2019

7:00 to better understand what is going on. Okay? Take elements from both. In 2018, Bitcoin found support at 6K approximately plus or minus, you know, a couple thousand or so in February and in June. In 2026, so far we have found support at 60K in February, but it's too early in June to know if this will be support or not. It's too early to know. It could be. I'm not against that being support, but it's simply too early to know. In 2019, Bitcoin also found support at around 6K.

7:46 But what's really interesting about 2019 is that if you compare the current bare market to the 2019 postappathetic top bare market, you get a chart that looks like this. And so when you look at a chart like this, you can see there are a lot of similarities. And so what happened in 2019 going into 2020 is we had a crisis with the pandemic. Bitcoin had a massive capitulation. It then justified much looser monetary policy and then everything changed. Okay. Visually this looks kind of similar, right? It looks kind of similar, but it also looks similar to the average of

8:33 prior midterm years as well. It does. And if you look um let me just reload this. If you look at Bitcoin in 2026 compared to 2018, you can see the lows occur at the same time in February, higher low in late March, early April, a top in May, and then you bleed out into June. it structurally it's it's kind of playing out the same way, right? It's playing out the same way. But then you look at 2019 and you're like, well, it looks very similar to that as well. So which is it, right? Which is it? My guess is that it's not either. My guess is it's somewhere in between where maybe we drop but not as much as as 2020

9:24 because I do think there's a good chance that the four-year cycle low will occur later this year. And if Bitcoin were to simply nuke down a lot further, then I would probably pivot my view and say that the low could occur earlier in the year. If Bitcoin finds support at 60K, then it still opens up that idea of it of it playing out later on. And and and then I I still think that could make some sense. If Bitcoin drifts below 60K for, you know, a couple of weeks or so, I could see it then slightly deviating from 2018, but then probably not getting quite as bad as it did get in the pandemic, right? I mean, it just it

10:09 seems like maybe it it doesn't have to get quite that bad. So, that's where I am. I will say this, though, no one knows what's going to happen in the market. I I certainly don't. And it's better to react to what the market is giving us rather than to tell everyone, you know, what has to happen because the reality is again, no one actually knows. My best guess is that Bitcoin sets a low in June and then has a counter trend rally and then has another low in October. I would argue that there is a high likelihood that the October low would be lower than the June low. However, if there is a massive

10:55 capitulation in June, then the October low could actually be a higher low. But at the current prices, I think it would be more likely to be a lower low. Let me show you an example. Okay, with the stock market, we can learn a lot from the stock market. You know, stop saying that we only have a few data points for Bitcoin in the four year cycle. It's not true. We have plenty of data points for the four cycle in other markets if people are willing to look at other markets. But there are examples in history where Bitcoin or sorry where the stock market might actually bottom in June like in June of 1962 and then the October low was a higher low.

11:43 So and this was a midterm year, right? And then in the next cycle, the stock market just bottomed in October. And in 1974, we bottomed in October. In 1970, we had a local low, the low in May. And then higher low as higher lows as we got into July and August. And then by October, we were much higher. But that low was a sweep of the prior low, right? It was a sweep of the prior low. So, I think the things to the the sort of the the most likely paths to consider right now for Bitcoin are one where it just simply plays out like 2018. We find a

12:28 low at plus or like 60K around that level and if we do then we still likely will have another low in October if we hold here. If we don't hold here and Bitcoin continues to melt down through June, through like mid to late June or something, then depending on how low it goes would then depend influence whether I think that would be the actual market cycle bottom. For now, I have to stick to my guns and say the most likely low would in fact be October. And no amount of mental gymnastics in my mind can change that unless there's a massive price

13:14 capitulation. So for now I think it makes sense to defer to timebased capitulation and say that the most likely low will occur in October. However, if there is a big drop and all the onchain indicators reset and everything basically resets, then at that point I would pivot away from timebased capitulation to pricebased capitulation. But the reason I don't treat price-based capitulation as my main signal right now is because it seems like a fool's errand to know exactly when Bitcoin might get such a drop. Right? It feels like a fool's errand to say that all right, it's gonna it's going to crash like it did in the pandemic because we're not in a pandemic

14:00 right now. This is not, you know, we're not in like this massive surge in the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate just came in and it was still at 4.3%. All I'm saying is that I think Bitcoin is more likely to evolve like the average of prior midterm years, not like 2019 2020. But here's the catch. Here's the catch. And this is why I think it's a mix of 2018 and 2019, a slight mix. Because if you look at the average of prior midterm years and look at one standard deviation on that average, what it shows you is that while we are at the average right now, later in the month, the average would be a little bit lower. it would be about

14:48 45% down from the yearly open and 45% down from the yearly open. Let's go find where that yearly open was in January. Uh right about here, right? So, let me just get it on the yearly so I I'm not sort of eyeballing it. So, the yearly open was at around 87 and a halfK. So, you know, about 45% down from that um would put Bitcoin, let me let me zoom in here so I I get it exactly. I don't want to mess this up. 45% down from the yearly open, you know, kind of puts you around that around that 50k level. So, not 40, but but 50. And and again, I I can't say for sure we're going to go there. If you if you look at the

15:35 year-to- date ROI, it's not like we've perfectly tracked it. There's definitely been periods where we've outperformed it and so maybe we'll outperform it again. But you can see that on average Bitcoin goes down to about 45% below the yearly open by about mid June. Now in 2014, you know, you can see we came down to these levels and then we rallied up out of it. But I would argue that Bitcoin already did that for this cycle where it kind of rallied up out of it for a while and now it's falling back in. And even when it did that in 2014, you can see that still eventually fell back in to that October low. If you compare it to 2018, you can see that we'd be actually a lot lower from the yearly open, right? It was actually a

16:20 lot lower. And then if you compare it to 2022, you can also see that this is right around the time that there was a big drop in the market. So when people ask, you know, and and I try to figure out, all right, is this 2018? Is it 2019? The answer is it's neither. It's 2026 and there's elements of both. Structurally, you can see there are a lot of similarities between 2018 and 2026. It's just a 10x 10x higher, but we topped on apathy like 2019. So, it is it is different in in in some sense. And so, what I'm saying is what

17:07 if we simply continue following approximately the year-to- date ROI average of prior midterm years where maybe it goes a little bit lower, but then it doesn't outright collapse and perhaps we leave the final low for Q4. If I see the market evolve differently, if I see the market capitulate down much much further, then I would be willing to pivot a lot sooner. If Bitcoin just holds 60K, then I would probably assume there would be one final low in Q4. So, it's a lot of if then statements, right? If 60k

17:54 holds then Q4 lower low and if we go sub 60K like down into the low 50s then you could still have a lower low in Q4. If we capitulate like 2020 then Q4 would likely be a higher low. One of the things to consider for Bitcoin is when you look at where bare markets historically bottom, we'll get to the bounce price in a future video, but Bitcoin historically has gone below the realized price in bare markets. Okay? You can see it did it in 2011. It did it in 2014 and in

18:40 2018 and even in 2020 and also in 2022. And right now the realized price for Bitcoin is around 53 to 54K. That doesn't mean it has to go there immediately. In 2014, it took until October to go below it. In 2018, it took until November to go below it. In 2022, we went below it in June. So, I don't know exactly when we're going to go below it, but I would say there's a good chance we'll likely see Bitcoin hit the realized price at some point if history is any indication. That would be my guess. Um, as this is how the cycle

19:25 does in fact normally play out. That doesn't mean you have to wait to go buy Bitcoin. Usually, the right strategy in my opinion for Bitcoin is DCAing after the June low. You don't have to time the bottom, right? I mean, most of the money is made in just DCAing during these uptrends, right? After after they get moving, you don't have to buy the bottom and then if you miss the bottom, it's not like you can't buy, but oftent times buying Bitcoin in the second half of the midterm year ends up working out a lot better than buying it in the first half of the midterm year. If you buy it in the first half of the midterm year, you likely get wrecked. When you buy it in the second half of the midterm year, you tend to get much better entries. And while you might be at a loss for a little while on some of those entries,

20:11 the market then tends to come back the following year. So when I look at the chart, Bitcoin has swept the low. This was always the base case that we would sweep the low. The only question now is how much lower does it go? And we can't really know the answer to that question for a couple more weeks. You know, I think it's important to allow the June low to form, look for confirmation that it's in, and then we can start talking about what comes next. But I can't sit here with a lot of confidence and tell you whether the low is in or not, right? I just I don't know. I I simply do not know. And if it follows the average of prior midterm years, it'll go a little bit lower.

20:57 If it follows 2018, it'll find support now. If it follows 2019, it'll capitulate a lot more. I think it's I think it's somewhere in between. That's my guess. So, I think it's somewhere in between. I don't think it's either of them exactly. I think it's somewhere in between those. And I think that is the way you use prior bare markets to say, look, it's not like 28. It's not a carbon copy of 2018. It's not a carbon copy of 2019, but there's elements of both of those bare markets in the current bare market. There's elements of both. And so, what if what we're seeing right now has properties that are similar to both of those bare markets. So, we'll see if it

21:42 plays out like that. Thank you guys for tuning in. Make sure you subscribe, give the video a thumbs up, and again, check out the sale on into the cryptoverse premium at into the cryptoverse.com. I'll see you guys next time. Bye.

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