Bankless · Monday, September 28, 2026
Ben Cowen contrasts the current crypto bear market with previous ones, highlighting a lack of major contagion events like Terra Luna, Three Arrows Capital, and FTX, and more favorable regulatory conditions compared to the 'Gary Gensler era.' He suggests this explains why the current bear market has been less severe.
“Last bear market was really bad. 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. Right. And then also we had three really bad events. You had Terra Luna, you had Three Hours Capital, we had FTX, so much contagion that we had to heal from. And then we had the Gary Gensler era.”
“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. There's not really a congruence with Terra Luna, 3R's Capital FTX. Instead of Gary Gensler, we have the most favorable regulatory conditions of all time. And our bear market, correspondingly, is just not that bad.”