This content was created by Ben Simpson. This content was uploaded by Ben Simpson. This is a YouTube video titled "The truth about the crypto cycle right now…" (created 2026-01-21) featuring Ben Simpson delivering a solo commentary on current crypto market dynamics. He characterizes the market as a mid-cycle correction rather than a multi-year bear market, warns that drawdowns are painful and can wipe out weak, small‑cap altcoins (citing Pepe down ~77% YTD), explains recovery math (e.g., an 80% loss requires a ~400% gain to break even), and advises cutting speculative/poor altcoins and focusing on stronger assets.
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Are we in a crypto bear market and how to prepare if we're going to continue to draw down? Now, right now I believe we're in a mid cycle correction. It is a painful period. Technically, yes, we could be in a bear market, but I don't believe we're going to be in one of those multi year bear markets that we've seen in the past. However, in saying that, one of the things that you need to be aware of when we do have these drawdowns is that they are painful, they are slow and the weakest altcoins get washed out. So if you don't have strong altcoins, you can look to see some of these small cap altcoins go down 80 to 95%. One of the biggest things we're seeing right now is no speculative altcoin is performing well at all. Pepe as an example, is down 77% this year. Any speculative altcoins, in my opinion, I would be cutting and getting rid of because a lot of people don't realize that when your altcoins are down 80%, it doesn't go back up 80% to get to break even, it needs to go up 400%. All right, so if your altcoins are down to get back to break even, it can be a lot harder to get there. Large cap altcoins sometimes go down 70 to 90% in a bear market and Bitcoin tends to sometimes draw down between 50 and 80%. Now this is in a proper bear market. I don't believe we're going into this depths of a bear market. We've already had such a large drawdown, but this is typical. The point I'm trying to say is that even if we are, if we aren't in a bear market, the technicalities in my opinion, don't really matter. The point is that in crypto we have these corrections. It's very normal. And you need to be aware that the lower the market cap and the poorer the altcoin, the worse it will perform.
