Benjamin Cowen Says Bitcoin (BTC) Drop to $73,500 May Not Be the Bottom

Bitcoin’s Slide to the 20-Week Average

Benjamin Cowen does not believe Bitcoin (BTC) has found its floor. In an assessment published on Monday, the analyst argued the market has yet to print this quarter’s low and that further declines remain possible over the coming weeks. The Bitcoin price fell to roughly $73,500, a level that carried the market onto its 20-week simple moving average (SMA) and inside the bull market support band, the zone that has historically defined where long-term buyers step in during bull cycles. In his reading, the short bounce from that area does not end the downtrend. The 20-week SMA averages the last 20 weekly closes, and the band it anchors runs between that line and the 21-week exponential moving average (EMA) just below it, a range many cycle watchers treat as the bull market’s floor. Bitcoin had already rallied off the 21-week EMA earlier in the decline, rolled over again, and Cowen thinks the same sequence can now repeat one band lower. He frames the current bounce as the kind of relief move that appears inside downtrends rather than the start of a recovery. Each bounce so far has been sold, and each fresh low has arrived after a stretch of sideways trade rather than capitulation. A weekly close back below the 50-week moving average, the longer trend line many funds use to separate bull from bear phases, adds to the bearish evidence. When Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed that average in 2019 and in 2023, the follow-through rallies ran close to 30%. This cycle’s breakout managed about 10% before the gains were handed back, which Cowen reads as a possible false move to the upside. He describes the whole sequence as a gradual decline: sharp selloffs produce temporary rallies, the rallies fade, and selling pressure returns.

Cowen’s most likely scenario is a move below the bull market support band rather than a durable recovery from inside it. The historical anchor is the US midterm election cycle: Bitcoin has tended to show weakness in the fourth quarters of years when midterm elections take place. The pattern held across more than one cycle, he argues, which is why he treats the seasonal read as his base case. Broader markets add to the risk. A correction in the NASDAQ could deepen the selling pressure on Bitcoin. In earlier cycles, Ethereum and the wider altcoin market reached their own bull market support bands first and then lost them, a sequence he keeps in mind for this quarter. The descent has already been steep: Bitcoin (BTC) slid to $75,000 as an AI stock selloff froze risk appetite, and the drop to $73,500 followed. The calendar matters too. Cowen does not think Bitcoin has formed its fourth-quarter low yet, and he points to December. Working from past interest-rate hiking cycles, he has mapped recurring weakness to roughly the 58th and 94th days after the first hike, and the cycle he tracks currently stands at day 54. On the historical average, day 94 falls in December. In 2018, Bitcoin bottomed in mid-December. That precedent sits close to the next Fed decision. The upcoming Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting could therefore shape where the low forms: the possibility that the Fed pauses rate increases could reset market expectations, though Cowen expects selling pressure to persist until then. His practical advice follows from that cycle view. Investors should avoid emotional reactions to short-term swings, since those who panic-sell into sharp drops tend to buy back into the ensuing bounce and compound their losses, a break with the long-holding discipline crypto culture sums up as HODL.

The December Window and the Fed

The test is close in time, which makes the call checkable. The 20-week SMA near $73,500 is the immediate reference, and Cowen’s day-count places the next pressure window in December, around the Federal Reserve’s meeting. Nothing in the drawdown points to a deterioration in Bitcoin’s proof of work network; this is a positioning and macro story, and the post-halving cycle is folding into a December decision the way the 2018 one did. Other desks frame comparable downside math: one CIO has put Bitcoin at $65,000 risk if the $71,900 trend line gives way. Against that caution, buyers have kept adding, with picking up 1,036 BTC for $81.9 million during the slide a case in point. Our Bitcoin technical analysis page tracks where the band sits against the live price.