Benjamin Cowen Predicts Dot Com Style Crash for Altcoins

In a recent YouTube video, quantitative market analyst Benjamin Cowen spoke to Altcoin Daily about the current state of the altcoin market. He believes that altcoins, cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin and Ethereum, will likely continue to decrease in value.

The popular analyst who has a PhD in Engineering and a background in computational mathematics and programming, believes that altcoins will continue to decline as a result of overall market mood and reduced liquidity. He said: “As liquidity is taken out of central banks, the altcoin market tends to go down. So I am still of the opinion that the altcoin market is likely to going to get hit until we get to a Fed pivot.”

Cowen compared the current situation to the dot-com crash, stating that, just like the NASDAQ in 2002, market analysts witnessed double peaks and a final peak before the crash. However, he mentioned that not all altcoins would necessarily go down simultaneously, but the overall trend was still downward. Interestingly, this trend continues despite the positive news in the SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit, which had initially raised hopes for the entire crypto market.

How long will this trend last?

Cowen estimates that the altcoin market will continue to lose another 47% against Bitcoin. He said: “I know a lot of people are looking at the Bitcoin dominance including stablecoins and they are saying it looks pretty bad. But I would still say it kind of looks like it’s retesting the breakout point.”

Bitcoin dominance compares the market cap of Bitcoin to that of the overall crypto market. It is often used as an indicator of how a particular coin performs relative to others, especially Bitcoin. It should be used in conjunction with other analytical tools and techniques.

Cowen speculates that while the altcoin market could bottom out in the 3rd quarter, he believes this is more likely to occur at the end of 2023. Cowen, who does not consider Ethereum to be an altcoin, said the number two by market cap has been performing rather well, especially when compared to the altcoin market. Nevertheless, ETH has also been slowly losing ground against Bitcoin. Cowen believes when the Ether-Bitcoin pair finds its bottom, it will mark the reversal of the entire altcoin market.

ETH at $7k USD and Top Alts?

Cowen predicts: “If you say that Bitcoin hits 100k and Ether-Bitcoin goes to say 0.07 then you are looking at a $7,000 (AU$10,954) ETH.” The analyst believes that others may not fare as well as Ethereum. In Cowen’s opinion XRP will continue to go down further, he said: “In the short term because Bitcoin is bearish right now, I think we’re likely going to look at XRP fading back to $0.4 (AU$0.63) at the very least.”

But he added that this was his optimistic guess and that XRP could suffer further 30 to 40 percent losses from that mark. When asked about his picks for buying altcoins, Cowen said: “I’m not going out today to buy altcoins because I think they are very risky. I will say that if they have bottomed on their Bitcoin pairs, which still remains to be proven, they’re still likely to go down on their USD pairs.”

In closing, Cowen reminded investors that while altcoins tend to bleed longer than most expect, they “also tend to come back aggressively sort of the middle part of the halving year and the post halving year.”

The Bitcoin halving is expected in April 2024, and many have pointed to this, along with the pending Bitcoin ETF approvals in the United States, as the catalyst for the next bull run.