Have you considered dividing the whole period 2009-2026 into two episodes 2009-2017 and 2018-2026 ?
I'd definitely say there were at least two different periods, even if I'd put the cut between 2016 and 2017, or choose some date in early 2017 (for example the futures approval), because 2017 was the year of the first real massification of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general (first futures, altcoin ICO craze etc.). 2018 was the aftermath of that bull market so it makes no sense to put the cut between 2017 and 2018.I'd also cut off the first year. There was no real market back then. More cuts could be done between pre and post mid-2014 (MtGox period and post-MtGox) and pre and post late 2020 (Tesla involvement) and even in 2024 (US ETFs). And of cours I'd analyze the yearly averages, to flatten the volatility spikes.
But in general this doesn't change that much of the interpretation. 2017-18 was still a stronger bear market than 2021-22. And the 2017 bull was still much stronger than the 2021 bull.
There could be two ways to interpret this:
- buyers start to accumulate earlier in the bear market (anticipation) and this leads to higher lows.
- sellers do not panic that much anymore, only in periods of strong insecurity (the current Iran situation/recession fears) or Bitcoin-specific bad news (Terra/Luna, FTX, China ban -50% crash in 2021). In contrast to that the 2018 crash was purely panic-driven, probably due to an exhaustion of the bull fueled by new retailer capital which had flown in in 2017, thus this might have been the last classic "weak hands" crash (another reason for the 2020 cut I mentioned above).
Both reasons are bullish and would be a strong foundation for a 60k bottom or at least a yearly low close to 50k at most which is of course still possible.
But they are comforted by the fact that this market has fluctuated many times and later the market will recover twice. Therefore, people are less afraid now because they have already experienced it.
This can indeed be a reason and the cause for the two phenomenons I mentioned above (earlier accumulation, less panic). A textbook maturing of the Bitcoin market.There could be even more ways to interpret this and most of them are pretty straightforward I think. Bitcoin has stood the test of time and there are now probably more people involved with bitcoin who also have a somewhat longer history with bitcoin. It is not very new hands in there who get shaken quickly. You've got more investors who have far more financial endurance, which means there is supposedly less downward dynamic possible. That doesn't mean it is impossible, but especially the dump in end 2017/18 has proven that there were so many retail traders who literally shit their pants and then sold at whatever they could get.
Another factor was how diluted. the market was, or the ecosystem in general. When one alt coin after the other died within hours because liquidity disappeared, holders tried to get out of their alt, mostly into ethereum then and from their cut losses. It was the perfect storm to pull down everything. It was usually this altcoin x > ethereum > bitcoin > dump for fiat and cry. It depended on which exchanges traders were using, but in many cases that was their exit route an ethereum was far more volatile than bitcoin, therefore almost everyone dumped ethereum and was extremely concerned and sensitive to price movements in bitcoin, too. That is why it really ended in a slaughtering no matter which crypto you looked at back then.
I think this has changed because many big and institutional investors are less likely to move their holdings when bitcoin goes down or up 20%. Back then there were far more people (relative to big holders I suspect) who could contribute to that dump.
With time passing by and less of this crazy hype speculation talk and reporting in public, I think there are more holders now who have made a rather strong decision to get in and stay for a while. In 2017 you had to act fast and couldn't make up your mind first for months or look back at a solid decade of global bitcoin trading. All that has changed and makes it less likely to see another 70% dump.
Novogratz did that and I don't know, but hasn't Cuban been there before? I don't know anymore, but several of those tech billionaires talked bs about bitcoin as soon as they got out. 