Benjamin Cowen, a crypto analyst who has covered Bitcoin market cycles for nearly a decade, makes a distinction that most investors never internalize: there is a difference between being right and making money.
"One of the biggest mistakes investors make," Cowen says, "is spending too much time overanalyzing and trying to time the exact bottom. Most of the money isn't made there." In his view, the majority of returns come from simply staying in the trend — not from heroic timing calls.
"It doesn't matter if you timed it perfectly. As long as you kept DCAing, you could enjoy the spoils of the bull market."
The Risk-Tiered System
Six years ago, Cowen developed what he calls dynamic DCA — a framework that adjusts how much you invest based on where the market sits within a risk scale. The concept is straightforward: invest more when risk is low, invest less when risk is high, but never stop entirely.
In practice, Cowen says he buys a base amount at moderate risk levels, doubles or triples it when the market drops into deeply oversold territory, and reduces exposure as prices rise toward historically elevated zones. "If the market goes lower," he explains, "I increase the DCA so I can get my cost basis as low as possible before the next bull market begins."
Over three market cycles, Cowen notes he's progressively tightened his buy threshold — DCAing below 0.5 risk in cycle one, below 0.4 in cycle two, and below 0.3 in the current cycle. "As time goes on," he says, "I'm less interested in chasing higher prices. I'd rather put what I want into the market near the cycle low, then let it run."
The Discipline Problem
Cowen is candid about why most people fail to execute this: patience during quiet markets is genuinely hard. "When the market is shooting upwards and it's euphoric, you can't think clearly," he says. "When it's dropping a lot, you can't think clearly either." His advice: build your strategy now, when markets are calm, so you're not scrambling later.
He also acknowledges that dynamic DCA isn't for everyone. "If you know you can't sit on a small cash position and wait," Cowen says, "then regular fixed DCA might actually be better for you." The system only outperforms if you have the discipline to hold back when conditions aren't right — and deploy aggressively when they are.
The right system is the one you'll actually follow. Cowen's framework is one approach — there are others, using different signals and different thresholds. What they all share is the same foundation: a pre-committed plan that removes the decision from the moment, so when the market gets uncomfortable, you already know what to do.
Based on analysis by Benjamin Cowen, crypto analyst and creator of Into The Cryptoverse. Views expressed are his own.