Everyone seems to expect things going 'as before', but they don't....planB fell hard for it.
I think that IF we are starting a new cycle, it could be quite different from the prior cycles.
The amount of front-running could be significant (even more than in 2019) to the point that cycles themselves might come into question.
We have to remember that it is not a true cycle, like rotation of Earth around the Sun with spin axis tilted vs the orbital plane, causing seasons.
The change in the number of coins issued after halving vs ALL coins that were mined before keeps decreasing.
The numerator in (new coins)/(already issued coins in the circulation) is smaller, hence the effect of the new halvings might be less.
At least this is what i think.
It fits the data too: 72X from the first halving to ATH in 2013, 33X from the second halving to ATH in 2017, 7.5X from the third halving to ATH in 2021.
I don't know why the last one was SO timid..the proper number (in case of linear decline) should have been 15X (for about $130K).
Either we would "compensate" for the prior timid cycle and go bananas OR we go for 2-4X from the halving price this time (as per continuing decrease in halving influence).
2X would suggest that the cycles are effectively OVER.
If we analyze the previous two cycles, we will see something that is omitted as insignificant, but important in my opinion. In the bear market 2014-2016, although the price often returned to 200-ish, it is noticeable that the average price rose on an annual basis: 200-400-600. Price 600-750 at the beginning of the bull market is over 3x compared to the bottom 200.
Something similar happened in 2018-2020. The average price rose from 3,100 to 10K along the halving. This is again 3x +. All this is a reflection of the increase in demand, which is shown by the statistics for the new addresses. What was different this time, was that we had a flat peak for months, which was repeated at even higher levels. This is a strong sign that this price will be reached again in the near future. I say this because before there were voices that 20K is an unattainable price, the fruit of some FOMO, which will not happen again. Now things are even safer than before in this regard.
My explanation for the flat peak and the big dips is the following. In the years before 2021, there was only talk of institutions entering the spot market, not just derivatives. It turned out that they were imperceptibly preparing and all at once entered the market. Only the hedge funds that have bought bitcoins are over 1300 as I read somewhere! Many of these companies have bought over 10K bitcoins. And this is too fast depletion of liquidity in the market. Paradoxically, this did not lead to the expected sharp top above 100K.
There were many reasons for this: the elon musk tweets, the panic in Asian markets over the Chinese ban, but mostly the collapse of some projects that were de facto ponzis or had improper collateral and coudln't support the yield. It turned out that these institutions are investors who view bitcoin as the stocks. They do not expect more than 20% profit or loss. That's why they sell, mostly at a loss. Only the Canadian Purpose ETF, for example, bought over 50K bitcoins at a price above 55K and sold half of them at a price of 17.5K-20K.
In this sense, it turned out that the retail investors behind the institutions are the weakest possible hands. This is logical since if someone can't buy and hodl bitcoins in cold storage then he is not educated enough and hence doesn't have the needed will power. This leads to bankruptcies and sell-offs, which unfortunately have not yet ended. This whole fiasco changed the normal course of the cycles, but not completely. I expect more educated investors to gradually enter through the institutions that will follow the example of Michael Sailor, looking at least 4-5 years ahead.
No matter what the price will be before the next halving, investors who will show character and will not sell anything below 100K will prevail. On the other hand, no one will have any illusions anymore and will most likely sell some quantity between 100K and 200K in anticipation of a 50% + drop. So the most likely top will be in my opinion in this range. But there is a theoretical possibility that there will be no new ATH, if things with the institutions turn out to be much worse than we think (like Greyscale going bankrupt), or the other extreme - to go way over 200K and compensate for the lack of a sharp top in the previous cycle. In my opinion, this can only happen with the appearance of significant news around the normal peak, as happened in 2017.