Benjamin Cowen argues Bitcoin (BTC) remains deeply undervalued versus his fair-value logarithmic regression trend line and is likely to stay weak for at least a few more months, with 2026 still playing out like a bear-market phase after the four-year cycle top. He says the setup resembles 2019 and even the earliest era of crypto, with the asset class still suffering from scams, rug pulls, hacks, and dwindling retail interest. In his view, the industry has to mature by rejecting scams and building real fundamentals before broader adoption can stick. He expects BTC and the wider asset class to get even more undervalued before year-end, then eventually work into a fresh bull market and, long term, reach roughly $10 trillion plus or minus a few trillion.
Bitcoin is still coming in well below Benjamin Cowen’s "fair value logarithmic regression trend line," and he said he has been expecting that to continue throughout 2026.
Cowen said fair value is a monotonically increasing function, so even if BTC goes sideways it becomes more undervalued relative to that line.
He said the current setup looks very similar to the last business cycle and that the four-year cycle top aligned with the post-apathetic top digestion phase, which he called unfortunate.
He said the market has been playing out very similarly to 2019 and his guess is that nothing really changes this year.
Because 2026 was the bear market right after the apathetic top tied to the four-year cycle top, Cowen said Bitcoin is likely to stay very undervalued for the rest of the year.
He said even in line with the four-year cycle, things could get worse before they get better, and he is not opposed to Bitcoin going lower.
He said the percentage gap between Bitcoin and the fair value regression trend line is currently pretty low, and that BTC has only been lower than this when crypto first launched.
Cowen said the asset class has a problem because so much of crypto is scams, memecoin rug pulls, presidential rug pulls, and other bad behavior.
He said hacks and security vulnerabilities, including one company’s device-security issue that caused many people to lose Bitcoin, are part of why retail interest keeps fading.
He said YouTube views across crypto channels continue to drop, which he sees as evidence that retail interest is dwindling.
Cowen argued the fix is for crypto to rebuke scams and focus on building real things rather than prioritizing ETFs, strategic Bitcoin reserves, and the Clarity Act.
He said many people enter crypto but leave after losing money in things they did not even know were wrong, and he rejected the idea that altcoin rug pulls are good for Bitcoin because they onboard users.
He said the industry should reward straight shooters and continue its long maturation process, because every industry goes through this phase and crypto is still in it.
He said the last time Bitcoin was this low relative to fair value was 2010, when the asset class was essentially born, and that the industry has existed since 2009 with a lot of speculation and promises.
He said the four-year cycle still appears to be working, so he will defer to it for now and expects the asset class to become even more undervalued before year-end, before eventually moving into a fresh bull market.
Cowen said he eventually thinks the asset class will reach about $10 trillion, plus or minus a few trillion.