Bitcoin dominance trading sideways all year is the biggest 2026 surprise for Benjamin Cowen, the Into the Cryptoverse founder. The metric has barely moved since August 2025, defying his preseason forecast.
Coin Bureau founder Guy Turner points to a different shock. The S&P 500 keeps printing highs despite an energy crisis and Middle East tensions that should be crushing risk assets.
1. Bitcoin Dominance Stalls All Year
On a recent episode of NFA Live hosted by Rob of Digital Assets News, Cowen said Bitcoin (BTC) dominance has behaved unlike any midterm year in his research. Including stablecoins, the metric has drifted sideways since August 2025. He also flagged a related anomaly around semiconductors, which ripped roughly 40% higher in a few weeks.
“I don’t really think anyone had on their bingo card going into 2026 that Bitcoin dominance would just trade sideways basically for… the first half of the year.”
2. ETFs Killed the Altcoin Season
A second 2026 crypto surprise for Cowen is how little social media traction spot Bitcoin ETF discussions have generated compared with prior cycles.
“ETF mentions on social media… that narrative is almost negligible compared to the dominance that we had with NFTs and DeFi back in 2021.”
Turner argues crypto natives now view exchange-traded funds as adjacent to Traditional Finance (TradFi) rather than part of the sector. In his view, spot Bitcoin ETFs are the main culprit for the missed altseason blowoff because they absorbed capital that would normally rotate into smaller tokens.
3. Wall Street Ignored the Chaos
Turner is still processing how the S&P 500 printed a new high on ceasefire headlines while an oil supply crunch and Israel-Iran tensions dominated the news cycle. Artificial Intelligence (AI) flows have absorbed the damage, in his view.
“I don’t think the S&P 500 being so resilient in the face of so much uncertainty… I think that… definitely wouldn’t have been on my bingo card.”
4. What Was on the Bingo Card
Not everything in 2026 has shocked the crypto analysts. Turner fully expected more hacks funneling money to North Korea’s weapons program through the Lazarus group.
“I knew for damn sure that more money was going to be lost… I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the biggest hack of the year is still to come.”
Cowen added that counter-trend rallies were always in his midterm year playbook. February and April typically mark lows in years like 2014, 2018, and 2022, he said, with fresh weakness landing later in the summer around a likely Bank of Japan rate hike.
5. The Clarity Act Could Flip the Script
Turner is bearish on near-term crypto legislation. He says the Clarity Act has slipped off the congressional calendar for now, but passage would change the picture.
“If the Clarity Act passes… in the next few weeks… that would mean that the bottom was well and truly in.”
Until then, both crypto analysts see the current rally as a counter-trend move inside a bear market, with the 21-week exponential moving average (EMA) as the key ceiling.
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