As we approach ATH what is different compared to 2017?

[DougM]

We are likely to test the ATH of $ 19783 soon I found myself asking what is different than before.  In short, a lot, but I would like to hear other thoughts.  'Chainalysis Team' published this report that has some interesting prospective I haven't considered/realized.  https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/bitcoin-price-surge-explained-2020

Are their points valid or hogwash? To summarize they boil it down to demand vs liquidity (yeah that bit is obvious), but they characterize the differences in demand namely big name institutional investment. Again widely discussed in this forum but this chart is slick if the underlying data is valid:

Right now, the amount of liquid Bitcoin is similar to what it was during the 2017 bull run. But the amount held in illiquid wallets is much higher, currently representing 77% of the 14.8 million Bitcoin mined that isn’t categorized as lost, meaning it hasn’t moved from its current address in five years or longer. That leaves a pool of just 3.4 million Bitcoin readily available to buyers as demand increases.

They also highlight an large inflows to exchanges primarily serving North America:

North American exchanges were losing Bitcoin on net in the early part of the 2017 bull run, and became a net receiver as price began to peak. This time around though, North American exchanges have been in the green throughout, with inflows ramping up to higher levels than at any point in the 2017 run in the last few months.

Similarly, we also see much higher net inflows to exchanges allowing crypto-to-fiat (C2F) trades compared to 2017. C2F exchanges are playing a bigger role in this surge than in 2017, when crypto-to-crypto (C2C) exchanges, used mostly by traders swapping many different types of cryptocurrency, drove more of the market. This, combined with the accumulation of Bitcoin by investor wallets that tend to hold for long periods of time, suggests that first-time Bitcoin buyers and buyers looking to unload fiat currency for Bitcoin as a hedge against worrisome macroeconomic trends are responsible for much of the current demand.

This is good news for cryptocurrency
While we can’t know if prices will continue to rise, the current Bitcoin surge portends good things for cryptocurrency — not just because prices are rising, but because of why they’re rising. A comparison of this bull run to that of 2017 suggests that investors have become savvier and more strategic, buying Bitcoin to fulfill a specific use case rather than to speculate on the new hot asset. If Bitcoin can continue to be an effective hedge against macroeconomic trends, we believe more and more institutional investors will put money into the asset, leading to even more mainstream adoption.

[1715090515]

1715090515

[Upgrade00]

To summarize they boil it down to demand vs liquidity (yeah that bit is obvious), but they characterize the differences in demand namely big name institutional investment. Again widely discussed in this forum but this chart is slick if the underlying data is valid:

As you said, this point has been excessively discussed, and I've chimed in a couple of times about how the demand and supply ratio would influence the price; A fixed supply rate means we are technically immune to supply shocks and a growth in demand, without a growth in willingness of holders to sell would have a positive effect on price. This does not mean bitcoins would be difficult to purchase or become scarce, but rather most people are seeing the potential value and putting a premium on it.

Similarly, we also see much higher net inflows to exchanges allowing crypto-to-fiat (C2F) trades compared to 2017. C2F exchanges are playing a bigger role in this surge than in 2017, when crypto-to-crypto (C2C) exchanges, used mostly by traders swapping many different types of cryptocurrency, drove more of the market. This, combined with the accumulation of Bitcoin by investor wallets that tend to hold for long periods of time, suggests that first-time Bitcoin buyers and buyers looking to unload fiat currency for Bitcoin as a hedge against worrisome macroeconomic trends are responsible for much of the current demand.

The fall of the ICO market could be the reason for this. As at late 2016 through to early 2018, new projects were springing up all around and the altcoin market was in a hype phase, most of the projects ran ICOs and accepted funds in BTC and ETH (maybe a couple of other currencies too), leading to an increase in C2C transactions. Fast forward to now, we do not have as much new projects springing up and crowdfunding is not as popular.
Bitcoin these days is more commonly juxtaposed with Gold or hard fiat currencies than altcoins, as a hedge against inflation.
Overall, the current rally is different than any we have seen (although, it would be the first I'm actually experiencing). After a couple of bull runs, investors have become more aware, and would have learnt from previous experience. They've seemed to also raise the expectations, BTC is currently closing in on $19k with no real excitement in the market or media and also no hyper fomo yet, makes me assume we're only getting started.

[Casdinyard]

I'd say expectations are higher for this year than in 2017 simply because we have already experienced the ATH and since there is a huge price increase at this moment,many people or investors are anticipating the market price to again touch and even break the ATH, unlike before wherein people are almost clueless of how much could the market price be. Many of us are now hesitant to invest at this point because of fear that market price could fall in a sudden without prior notice. There is also a tendency that investors would sell upon reaching the $20k mark, because that was the moment wherein price declined.

[buwaytress]

Difference from my perspective: mainly, that the majority of people in the space now are completely different. I was a newcomer in 2016, and can't really explain just how different the people using Bitcoin were. In fact, that seems key to me. Most I knew then we're users, and hey we're who I tried most with using it in my initial attempts.

Most I knew since are holders more than users. Everyone now seems louder, more vocal, more knowledgeable but not actually users.

Even looking on the forum you see the ones talking about utility, new features, etc, generally users from that era or earlier. Sure, new ones are always coming along but not the majority.

I know my observation is flawed, circumstancial evidence and haphazard, but that's my impression of what is hugely different.

[cabron]

Back then, investors still have doubts that the bullrun that made bitcoin touch $1200 for the first time in 2011 was just a hype. It once again happened in 2017.

I think the difference between the bullrun back in 2017 compares to what is going on now is that today we already know it's coming and we are ready to enjoy the ride.  

[JimboToronto]

As we approach ATH what is different compared to 2017?

We're still a year ahead of the big rally.

With both of the previous halvings there was a run up past the old ATH several months after the halving that set new ATHs and then retraced before going parabolic half a year later.

Don't compare this to 2017. Compare it to 2016 or early 2013.

We still haven't even passed the old ATH. Later next year the real fun begins. Think 6 digits.

[lkjhg]

It looks like the topic of all forums is about the price of bitcoin reaching All time high,
I am happy, because we are in the bullish season, everyone believes in bitcoin and makes Bitcoin able to go to $ 18000.

[Findingnemo]

We can't simply say that prices will keep on increasing once it reaches new ATH because there are lot of people are waiting to sell their bitcoin for very long who bought at expensive price so if there something waiting for us then it may trigger the chain reaction of panic selling.

[DustyRah]

A wall of investor money and not retail money. Google trend for Bitcoin is very low at 12% which means the people involved now already know about Bitcoin.

[DougM]

Overall, the current rally is different than any we have seen (although, it would be the first I'm actually experiencing). After a couple of bull runs, investors have become more aware, and would have learnt from previous experience. They've seemed to also raise the expectations, BTC is currently closing in on $19k with no real excitement in the market or media and also no hyper fomo yet, makes me assume we're only getting started.

Thanks for your input....I agree this feels more like a start then an end.  

[24Kt]

Overall, the current rally is different than any we have seen (although, it would be the first I'm actually experiencing). After a couple of bull runs, investors have become more aware, and would have learnt from previous experience. They've seemed to also raise the expectations, BTC is currently closing in on $19k with no real excitement in the market or media and also no hyper fomo yet, makes me assume we're only getting started.

Thanks for your input....I agree this feels more like a start then an end. 

I believe crypto users are smarter and more knowledgeable than before. Also, for those noncrypto users that will join this community, they are more cautious now. Unlike in 2017 hype, a lot of people bought their crypto because of the hype without making any analysis first about the investments. I guess, that's their learning phase when it comes to crypto investments.

[dragonvslinux]

More or less everything is different about current price levels than 2017. We didn't go from $10K to $18.9K within a few weeks, more like a few months. Your charts certainly indicate that investor mentality is similar to $900 BTC back in late 2016, that of hodling taking over from trading. Don't be surprised to see $20K for another 6 months though.

[exstasie]

They also highlight an large inflows to exchanges primarily serving North America:

North American exchanges were losing Bitcoin on net in the early part of the 2017 bull run, and became a net receiver as price began to peak. This time around though, North American exchanges have been in the green throughout, with inflows ramping up to higher levels than at any point in the 2017 run in the last few months.

I find this intriguing.

This could be a byproduct of the increasingly rigid regulatory atmosphere. The FATF travel rule, exchanges segregating between their US/EU platforms and the rest of the world, the UK banning crypto derivatives, Bitmex being charged, etc. Less inflows and volume on opaque and unregulated exchanges, and more inflows in the opposite direction.

This is exactly what CME executives were getting at when they said they would "tame" Bitcoin a few years back. It's also exactly what the SEC wanted to see before they'd be willing to approve an ETF.

[aioc]

By now investors have learned the volatility of the market, it's not about buying what you can, investors are now going long term, they know what to look, investors are now more aware pf correction, FUDS, FOMO, I don't think we'll have a massive dump after another all time high, the market is very much different compared three years ago, the pandemic did not stop the market from gong up, I don't think another all time high will.

[pooya87]

the difference is a pretty simple and obvious one, the 2017 rise was a bubble and today's rise is growth.

it is exactly similar to the 2016-17 rise too when price initially reached the ATH of that time (that was at $1200). the 2013 rise to that ATH was a bubble and price went above the intrinsic value whereas the 2016-17 rise to that ATH was a natural growth that happened based on increasing adoption.
everything else is just explanation and sometimes justification of that increasing demand.

[sunsilk]

It looks like the topic of all forums is about the price of bitcoin reaching All time high,
I am happy, because we are in the bullish season, everyone believes in bitcoin and makes Bitcoin able to go to $ 18000.

Not for the end of this year. It's just like we're tasting the appetizer of the upcoming bull run. The run does look like a bull run but the best is yet to come. As you see, we're in the ongoing correction and we haven't yet reached a higher peak than $18,000.

Don't compare this to 2017. Compare it to 2016 or early 2013.

We still haven't even passed the old ATH. Later next year the real fun begins. Think 6 digits.

I reckon that this is true and that makes it exciting to wait until the next year.

[Russlenat]

Based on my experience in 2017, I learn that bitcoin is so "volatile", it could pump or dump but that is not something to worry as the law of average will apply. Just like the current price, I don't think it's going to pump continuously that we will not see some correction.

I know the correction is gonna happen soon, but because I learn some technique in 2017, I won't continue to hold, instead, I'll convert on usd value so the value will not drop as bitcoin will dump.

Some are still bullish but the matured minds bitcoin will not reach a higher price in just a very short period of time.

[Lucius]

For starters, we could say that there is no difference between what happened in 2016 and what is happening today in terms of price movements - because after both halving the price went up, but this time it is not x2, but by the end of the year it may be x3. Coincidence or not let everyone judge for themselves, but smart people have long said that nothing happens by accident.

What we all see and most agree that this bull run is definitely related to the money of large companies and funds located mainly in the USA (so far), and that this was not the case during 2016/17. Also, what did not happen then was the pandemic that led to some very problematic financial decisions by which most countries save their economies - which obviously scares many investors who think that fiat is more and more like a melting ice cube.

The only constant we have is Bitcoin, everything else has changed including that people have become much smarter (at least those who have learned the 2017/18 lesson).

[JRoa]

I'd say expectations are higher for this year than in 2017 simply because we have already experienced the ATH and since there is a huge price increase at this moment,many people or investors are anticipating the market price to again touch and even break the ATH, unlike before wherein people are almost clueless of how much could the market price be. Many of us are now hesitant to invest at this point because of fear that market price could fall in a sudden without prior notice. There is also a tendency that investors would sell upon reaching the $20k mark, because that was the moment wherein price declined.

The greed is so high where I can say that we are still in the beginning of the mark up phase because there are still institutions or powerful persons who keep acquiring bitcoin right now. I notice that the daily volume is so high compared in the year 2017. The investors and traders are also increased in these past years so for sure that the demand will rise especially when it is now near at the ATH. I'd like to see Bitcoin ranging $30k - $40k next year.

[thecodebear]

A lot is different now.

The market is much larger now, though that always happens in each successive market cycle obviously.

Some key differences though are that
1. Mainstream finance applications now support bitcoin, like Robinhood and of course Paypal is just starting to allow this.
2. Institutional investors / Wall St are much more in the game. Institutional investment barely existed in 2017, and it is still only a tiny bit but it is increasing rapidly this year. Institutional investment right now is like where retail investment was in maybe early 2013 - it exists and is starting to grow rapidly now but is still only a tiny fraction of what will eventually come into Bitcoin and crypto.
3. Bitcoin is viewed as mainstream now. In 2017 Bitcoin was making headlines in the media for its parabolic run. Now Bitcoin has been a normal thing to talk about in the finance media for the past couple years. Even a good amount of the well known Bitcoin haters have been changing their tune. While owning Bitcoin isn't yet mainstream, Bitcoin is accepted as a normal part of the finance world now. It has (mostly) lost its stigma of being this dangerous thing that'll lose all your money unless you're lucky. Bitcoin/crypto is now considered a legit asset class.
4. The Bitcoin infrastructure is far larger and more sound. Segwit is no longer some controversial new upgrade, LN (while still very small) has been out for a while and isn't vaporware anymore, 3rd party payment networks are larger, ways to buy bitcoin are much more diverse (no longer just exchanges and localbitcoin, now you've got robinhood, paypal, grayscale is much larger and growing very quickly, Wall St companies and exchanges offer trading and storage, various futures markets if you just want to bet on the price and not actually invest).
5. The ICO boom was a big factor in the last crypto bull run, but the majority of that was hype with no substance. DeFi is the ETH based thing that will help drive this bull run, and it is much more real than ICOs because its offering actual financial products rather than hype based on ideas without any real market presence. DeFi should survive long term and will have a far larger impact on crypto as a whole than ICOs did.


Also the fact that we're not even in the 2017 stage of the market cycle now. We're in the 2016 stage. The real bull run hasn't even begun, and is likely 3-6 months from even starting.

I think the most exciting thing about Bitcoin price possibilities at this point is that institutional investment as of late is driving this price surge back to nearly last market cycle's peak. This is exciting because institutional investment is still absolutely TINY! It's barely even started and it's already driven the price back to nearly the ATH. It is easy to see institutional investment growing 20x, 30x, 40x, 50x this decade from where it is now - taking a more long term view than just the rest of this market cycle, but even just in the next year or two before the next long term peak its easy to imagine that retail investment could go up several times over by then. Combine this with the fact that the retail frenzy hasn't even begun yet, well its not hard to imagine the price breaking $100k in the next year or two.

[figmentofmyass]

i saw an interesting article the other day about the role bitcoin is playing in online poker. i wonder how big of an effect this has on the market:

In a Nov. 19 report from Bloomberg, the CEO behind Winning Poker Network, or WPN, said that up to 95% of poker players are currently requesting to be paid in Bitcoin.

“We are constantly having to go out and buy Bitcoin — lots,” said Nagy. He estimated that even before this recent price surge, the WPN was paying out more than $100 million in BTC every month, roughly 60% of all transactions on the network. Extrapolated to the 95% of payouts Nagy reports is currently occurring, and assuming the same volume, that would equate to roughly $158 million in Bitcoin each month.

According to Nagy, the majority of customers playing poker on the network reside in the United States, which may help explain their preference for crypto as a medium of exchange given that online gambling is legal in only 11 out of 50 states.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/poker-network-now-gives-95-of-payouts-in-bitcoin-around-160m-monthly

The ICO boom was a big factor in the last crypto bull run, but the majority of that was hype with no substance. DeFi is the ETH based thing that will help drive this bull run, and it is much more real than ICOs because its offering actual financial products rather than hype based on ideas without any real market presence. DeFi should survive long term and will have a far larger impact on crypto as a whole than ICOs did.

just like ICOs, the whole space already feels saturated and plagued by constant scams. DEXs have been inundated by scam tokens. i'm also not completely sold on the future use cases. it's all about yield farming and collateral backed lending. i just don't know how big that market is really gonna be in the future.

[Stedsm]

The speed

Yeah, it took years for BTC to go from 0 to 20k and this time, it happened in just 3 years timespan.

Stability

While we talked about the speed, we also need to see how things went in through timings - various events happened which gave boost to the Bitcoin price rather than just making it look completely speculative as before. So stable growth has been seen this time.

Scalability

Umm, I know BTC is still trying to get much better resources in order to keep/cope up with the market's demands and let the things go smooth, and I'm a happy Bitcoiner at the moment (except when we see fees going high). It's not like old days when we need to wait days before our transactions got confirmed even after paying basic necessary fees (while fee spikes took place).

Adoption

The event of Corona has taught us all a lesson that we can't rely on fiat scam because it is scam money and we need to get something in which we can invest something/everything and still be rest assured that one day we'll have it a lot more times than what it used to be. I'm now seeing big names challenging each other and betting on Bitcoin to be the one and only global currency, while many analysts have also predicted 20-50x of the current price of BTC. And in between that, the level of massive institutional and average people's adoption of BTC has increased to enormous levels and once again, Google is being flooded with BTC searches more than anything (even porn).  

Less followers

Well, don't get confused by the title, it's for the alts. Yeah, this rally isn't allowing shit coins to rise at any cost and they'll definitely not rise unless some bulls want to play with their money and make more money through innocent investors.

DeFi

Last but not the least, DeFi. This came and everything changed. I mean, even BTC is decentralized money man, who controls it? The one who has it but also hold the private key of that address. Okay, now about DeFi, I believe that the ego of BTC got hurt when it saw some DeFi named YFI partying hard with other DeFi friends (alts) and then BTC decided to show how it feels when BTC is on weed.   <= Everything rolls like this.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Undoubtedly, what is different are all events in the world, the situations are very different, in addition, when millionaire portfolios are reviewed at 100-1000 BTC they continue to maintain 61-62% https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html, of course this is not a guarantee that it is an indicator, but for 2017-2018 it reached almost 80%, there is still a lot to continue growing in price.

[magneto]

I think that what is different isn't actually bitcoin itself, but rather the wider economic environment that we find ourselves in.

We can split these into two main factors:

1. COVID has seen a great deal of QE around the globe and that is likely to spark more hawkish investors to seek somewhere to park their funds due to their belief of currency debasement. Bitcoin is the obvious safe-haven asset as gold continues to decline in popularity.

2. Institutional investors continue to flood the BTC market. We've seen this with even bigger name players than 2017, with Blackrock, Paypal etc.

Though, I think that it is likely BTC will not see percentage gains anywhere near the levels of 2017 simply because of the size of the market. The good thing is that market volatility will decrease substantially.

[adaseb]

The biggest difference now I would say is that this rally (except for the last 2 days) has been mostly led by the spot market instead of the derivative market. Usually arbitrageurs keep the price balanced between both, however there are times when there is a delta in the futures pricing. Hence why the funding rate exists.

The funding rate has been mostly flat during the last few months, very different from 2017 which was always like >0.10% per 8 hours. So back then, most people were leverage trading and bring BTCUSD price up. If someone has 1 BTC, they can buy up to 100 BTC worth rather than a spot trader who can only do 1:1 or something like 1:3 with regular margin.

The issue with high leverage positions is that we would get crazy $1000 red candles within a few minutes due to massive liquidations. So far we haven't experienced this yet. The markets are more stable and liquid than 2017.

[error08]

~
Also the fact that we're not even in the 2017 stage of the market cycle now. We're in the 2016 stage. The real bull run hasn't even begun, and is likely 3-6 months from even starting.

I think the most exciting thing about Bitcoin price possibilities at this point is that institutional investment as of late is driving this price surge back to nearly last market cycle's peak. This is exciting because institutional investment is still absolutely TINY! It's barely even started and it's already driven the price back to nearly the ATH. It is easy to see institutional investment growing 20x, 30x, 40x, 50x this decade from where it is now - taking a more long term view than just the rest of this market cycle, but even just in the next year or two before the next long term peak its easy to imagine that retail investment could go up several times over by then. Combine this with the fact that the retail frenzy hasn't even begun yet, well its not hard to imagine the price breaking $100k in the next year or two.

Yeah, that explains what's happening in the Bitcoin market at the moment. Institutional investors greatly affect the market, however we don't know for how long they plan to stay in the market, whether they want to accumulate bitcoin as a reserve asset for a long term or as a speculative asset to sell at the peak. Meanwhile, we can expect Bitcoin to reach a higher price until the time comes to reveal their plans in the future.

[Lucius]

i saw an interesting article the other day about the role bitcoin is playing in online poker. i wonder how big of an effect this has on the market:

Very interesting, poker players seem to be quite crypto oriented, or think that in this way they may be able to hide their winnings maybe? In any case, $158 million in BTC every month is almost $1.9 billion a year, which means that we have another very important player who is constantly buying BTC on the market. Everyone seems to have become interested in BTC because we have small family businesses switching their fiat to BTC, all the way to JPMorgan as the largest investment bank in the US advising investing in BTC.

[noorman0]

We have reached the bitcoin ATH 3 days ago.
The difference is that the USD is slightly higher against our currency compared to 2017, so to experience the ATH this time we don't have to wait until it hits 20k. When bitcoin hits 20k, it will be the new ATH for some countries.

source: https://indodax.com/chart/BTCIDR

However, the value of the USD has weakened since the US election. I am worried that when the USD strengthens again, it will reverse the price of bitcoin.

source: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=IDR&view=1Y

[kotajikikox]

We have reached the bitcoin ATH 3 days ago.
The difference is that the USD is slightly higher against our currency compared to 2017, so to experience the ATH this time we don't have to wait until it hits 20k. When bitcoin hits 20k, it will be the new ATH for some countries.

source: https://indodax.com/chart/BTCIDR

If only the value of Dollar is not this junk now Yeah the new ATH has been declared i'm sure but since we are relying on the value of bitcoin conversion to Dollar so the news has been denied and not recorded as Market cap has no Data of this.

However, the value of the USD has weakened since the US election. I am worried that when the USD strengthens again, it will reverse the price of bitcoin.

source: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=IDR&view=1Y

Actually the USD Value starts weakening even when the election was not in place.But anyway maybe things will Go good once Trump accepts and concede or the Claims of cheating will be proven.

[Harlot]

Considerably cheaper transactions fees are also notable during this kind of rounds, from what I remember in 2017 you will see that a lot of companies like Steam pulled out from accepting Bitcoin when they saw that the transaction fees are unreasonably high, this is when both SegWit and Lightning Network is not helping the Blockchain on carrying the stress. Well the scalability of Bitcoin is very good right now and I think it will help us when it comes to translating it more into demand.

[Gozie51]

I think the difference is that more adopters are coming in. PayPal is using bitcoin, institutional bodies are coming in and this means more growth to the bitcoin. The difference again is that the hype for 2017 was expected because at that time nothing was negative to bitcoin except for the bubble stuff. This time, it wasn't expected because covid-19 and economic challenge.

[coin-investor]

We can't simply say that prices will keep on increasing once it reaches new ATH because there are lot of people are waiting to sell their bitcoin for very long who bought at expensive price so if there something waiting for us then it may trigger the chain reaction of panic selling.

There are still people who will ride the FOMO, Bitcoin price is not going to end after it surpasses the last all-time high, it's not the real target, the real target is the highest it can go, and the market has matured, investors are buying because they believe it's going to be very much different from the last one, because back then people are not yet ready, but we are now.

[beerlover]

First of all 150 million per month on bitcoin doesn't seem realistic, sure they can claim that but with few companies like that and we would have been at $20k looong ago and would be higher.

However I suppose that is just people getting bitcoin and also when they are paid in bitcoin they just end up selling it back and getting cash instead, makes it easier to be paid bitcoin from a casino instead of cash so you do not have to explain to your bank that you gambled for that money and create more problems, but if you just cash out bitcoin you could say you invested early and you were lucky.

Secondly the different thing compared to 2017 is that there are ton of more new people and a lot of new institutional investors that makes bitcoin a lot more stronger and resistant to fall down.

[exstasie]

The biggest difference now I would say is that this rally (except for the last 2 days) has been mostly led by the spot market instead of the derivative market. Usually arbitrageurs keep the price balanced between both, however there are times when there is a delta in the futures pricing. Hence why the funding rate exists.

The funding rate has been mostly flat during the last few months, very different from 2017 which was always like >0.10% per 8 hours. So back then, most people were leverage trading and bring BTCUSD price up.

You're talking about after price was trading above the 2013 ATH. In other words, during the bubble stage. We haven't reached that point yet. In 2016, there was also significantly more fear in the market than in 2017. I think that speaks to what is happening today to some degree.

I have also begun paying more attention to Binance Futures than Bitmex. Volume wise, Binance is more important now and Binance funding rates have been consistently more bullish than Bitmex too.

I disagree that a high futures premium or high swap funding rates implies that derivatives must have been leading spot. It just implies that derivative traders were very bullish at those times.

[Fundamentals Of]

The difference is that we are older now, got more experience, more lessons learned from the past, more mature so to speak, etc. The market now is much wider. The players are bigger in number as compared in 2017. The number of big time investors are now much higher today compared in the past. That is probably the fruits of Bitcoin now playing in the mainstream field, now openly accepted even by governments and banks. Famous traditional investors and hedge fund managers are now beginning to appreciate Bitcoin and invest in it. Large companies are now getting into Bitcoin as well.

[BuNga_cute]

The price increase in 2017 was due to FOMO, we can see on the trading chart the increase was too fast in 2017.
So in the end there was a massive dump, because many investors want instant profit. In contrast to the current
price increase in this year, the fundamentals are stronger. And also it rises slowly and there is no FUD. Of the investors
there are also many rich people and large companies involved. So based on my analysis, most of the investors this year
are long-term investments. So there is very little chance of a dump happen.

[maydna]

The difference is that we are older now, got more experience, more lessons learned from the past, more mature so to speak, etc. The market now is much wider. The players are bigger in number as compared in 2017. The number of big time investors are now much higher today compared in the past. That is probably the fruits of Bitcoin now playing in the mainstream field, now openly accepted even by governments and banks. Famous traditional investors and hedge fund managers are now beginning to appreciate Bitcoin and invest in it. Large companies are now getting into Bitcoin as well.

I guess that is because the adoption process happens in many places, which will be different from 2017. Bitcoin price will not be the same from time to time, and if there are more investors come to the bitcoin, that can trigger the price to increase because they want to buy bitcoin at the current price. Bitcoin will become mainstream sooner or later, while people are still searching for a new source of income, making bitcoin more popular among the people. Besides that, people will see that bitcoin is not a scam because, from bitcoin, they see many people are really making money, which they also want to get.

[el kaka22]

The biggest difference is peoples perspective and that is quite important. Think about it, before 2017 we were just small some sort of game money in many mainstream media that really didn't deserve any attention at all. After the 2017 peak (or even during) we became something huge but it became just "some people got super rich over night" type of story and nothing more than that according to media.

Nowadays for the past 1 or 2 years, we have grown to be something that is very valuable towards not just regular people but for everyone involved like big companies and so forth as well. Even crypto related companies grew to be huge as well. So right now we have a stronger base and community, our community is not just liberal anarchists anymore, it is everyone and keeps growing every day.

[blckhawk]

I think the difference is that more adopters are coming in. PayPal is using bitcoin, institutional bodies are coming in and this means more growth to the bitcoin. The difference again is that the hype for 2017 was expected because at that time nothing was negative to bitcoin except for the bubble stuff. This time, it wasn't expected because covid-19 and economic challenge.

Indeed because of covid-19 it really hit hard the stock market while the crypto market remains the same that is why several investors choose to move on it. They more likely used it as a safe haven and then eventually understand the capabilities of Crypto. Besides, the adoption was also increasing from government, large companies such as Paypal, and other institutions. The growth speed before was phenomenal and it increases because of FOMO while today's speed growth was slow, not as speedy as we had before but much stronger and perhaps adoption was the cause of this one. Honestly, I kinda like today's growth compared we had before.

[bakasabo]

Imho the difference between ATH in 2017 and current prices are cryptocurrency investors experience. The history repeats and everyone see that after price drop it always recovers. This strengthens trust to cryptocurrency. Year 2017 investors were naïve and came to crypto market on the wave of ICO hype. Now me see more experienced people. DeFi hype ended in summer and now is having its last days. The difference could be also the probability that in 2017 prices were pumped by ICO, and now they are real.

[Fundamentals Of]

The difference is that we are older now, got more experience, more lessons learned from the past, more mature so to speak, etc. The market now is much wider. The players are bigger in number as compared in 2017. The number of big time investors are now much higher today compared in the past. That is probably the fruits of Bitcoin now playing in the mainstream field, now openly accepted even by governments and banks. Famous traditional investors and hedge fund managers are now beginning to appreciate Bitcoin and invest in it. Large companies are now getting into Bitcoin as well.

I guess that is because the adoption process happens in many places, which will be different from 2017. Bitcoin price will not be the same from time to time, and if there are more investors come to the bitcoin, that can trigger the price to increase because they want to buy bitcoin at the current price. Bitcoin will become mainstream sooner or later, while people are still searching for a new source of income, making bitcoin more popular among the people. Besides that, people will see that bitcoin is not a scam because, from bitcoin, they see many people are really making money, which they also want to get.

Bitcoin is already mainstream right now. Paypal is very mainstream. It could be used to represent the mainstream financial society and Paypal is now supporting Bitcoin. It may not be in the best way possible and preferable for many of us Bitcoin supporters but it is still a support by perhaps the largest payment system in the world right now. So Bitcoin is very much in the mainstream right now.

It is sad though that you see Bitcoin becoming mainstream just because people are looking for a new source of income. I don't share with this view. This is true but it is not the majority. I think many Bitcoin supporters are still believing and buying Bitcoin because Bitcoin is the future of money and not a source of money.

[Taskford]

I think the difference is that more adopters are coming in. PayPal is using bitcoin, institutional bodies are coming in and this means more growth to the bitcoin. The difference again is that the hype for 2017 was expected because at that time nothing was negative to bitcoin except for the bubble stuff. This time, it wasn't expected because covid-19 and economic challenge.

Indeed because of covid-19 it really hit hard the stock market while the crypto market remains the same that is why several investors choose to move on it. They more likely used it as a safe haven and then eventually understand the capabilities of Crypto. Besides, the adoption was also increasing from government, large companies such as Paypal, and other institutions. The growth speed before was phenomenal and it increases because of FOMO while today's speed growth was slow, not as speedy as we had before but much stronger and perhaps adoption was the cause of this one. Honestly, I kinda like today's growth compared we had before.

Many see the potential since despite of the economic crisis still bitcoins stands and doing a good job for maintaining it's stand compare to any other assets there, that's why by now it gather confidence to the forex trader to shift on it and see some several of them trading bitcoins and cryptocurrency.  And for the PayPal's adoption for sure we can see more from it and maybe more big money will be pour in the market duw to this iconic acceptance happened this year.

[HaXX0R1337]

Many see the potential since despite of the economic crisis still bitcoins stands and doing a good job for maintaining it's stand compare to any other assets there, that's why by now it gather confidence to the forex trader to shift on it and see some several of them trading bitcoins and cryptocurrency.  And for the PayPal's adoption for sure we can see more from it and maybe more big money will be pour in the market duw to this iconic acceptance happened this year.

There are several situations that aided the cryptocurrency market, the global pandemic that slowed downed the economy and we never know what the economic situation would be in the next five years and all the institutions see the bitcoin market as a safe heaven irrespective of the economic situation globally and these things helped the market drastically and PayPal adoption is one such instance that aided the market.

[maydna]

~snip~

Bitcoin is already mainstream right now. Paypal is very mainstream. It could be used to represent the mainstream financial society and Paypal is now supporting Bitcoin. It may not be in the best way possible and preferable for many of us Bitcoin supporters but it is still a support by perhaps the largest payment system in the world right now. So Bitcoin is very much in the mainstream right now.

It is sad though that you see Bitcoin becoming mainstream just because people are looking for a new source of income. I don't share with this view. This is true but it is not the majority. I think many Bitcoin supporters are still believing and buying Bitcoin because Bitcoin is the future of money and not a source of money.

I admitted that bitcoin become mainstream now, but it needs more adoption in many places to make bitcoin grow. Even if Paypal allows its users to buy bitcoin directly from their account, we still need to spread the news about bitcoin in many places, so more people will know and use bitcoin.

I don't mind if you disagree if I said that bitcoin is becoming mainstream because of the new opportunity to have a new income source, but that is what happens right now. But let us consider bitcoin the same as fiat, which can be the future of money, as you said, and bitcoin is also a source of money that people can get.

[pooya87]

~snip~

Bitcoin is already mainstream right now. Paypal is very mainstream. It could be used to represent the mainstream financial society and Paypal is now supporting Bitcoin. It may not be in the best way possible and preferable for many of us Bitcoin supporters but it is still a support by perhaps the largest payment system in the world right now. So Bitcoin is very much in the mainstream right now.

It is sad though that you see Bitcoin becoming mainstream just because people are looking for a new source of income. I don't share with this view. This is true but it is not the majority. I think many Bitcoin supporters are still believing and buying Bitcoin because Bitcoin is the future of money and not a source of money.

I admitted that bitcoin become mainstream now, but it needs more adoption in many places to make bitcoin grow. Even if Paypal allows its users to buy bitcoin directly from their account, we still need to spread the news about bitcoin in many places, so more people will know and use bitcoin.

I don't mind if you disagree if I said that bitcoin is becoming mainstream because of the new opportunity to have a new income source, but that is what happens right now. But let us consider bitcoin the same as fiat, which can be the future of money, as you said, and bitcoin is also a source of money that people can get.

Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream but the scale is still very small. It looks big from our perspective to see a big "name" has adopted bitcoin but in reality it is still pretty small, for instance not that many PayPal users use the option they added even though they reported big volumes and even if they do, it would be a one time experiment. Besides, the PayPal move is mostly for their own benefit and survival in long term not for bitcoin's adoption.

[CODE200]

~snip~

Bitcoin is already mainstream right now. Paypal is very mainstream. It could be used to represent the mainstream financial society and Paypal is now supporting Bitcoin. It may not be in the best way possible and preferable for many of us Bitcoin supporters but it is still a support by perhaps the largest payment system in the world right now. So Bitcoin is very much in the mainstream right now.

It is sad though that you see Bitcoin becoming mainstream just because people are looking for a new source of income. I don't share with this view. This is true but it is not the majority. I think many Bitcoin supporters are still believing and buying Bitcoin because Bitcoin is the future of money and not a source of money.

I admitted that bitcoin become mainstream now, but it needs more adoption in many places to make bitcoin grow. Even if Paypal allows its users to buy bitcoin directly from their account, we still need to spread the news about bitcoin in many places, so more people will know and use bitcoin.

I don't mind if you disagree if I said that bitcoin is becoming mainstream because of the new opportunity to have a new income source, but that is what happens right now. But let us consider bitcoin the same as fiat, which can be the future of money, as you said, and bitcoin is also a source of money that people can get.

Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream but the scale is still very small. It looks big from our perspective to see a big "name" has adopted bitcoin but in reality it is still pretty small, for instance not that many PayPal users use the option they added even though they reported big volumes and even if they do, it would be a one time experiment. Besides, the PayPal move is mostly for their own benefit and survival in long term not for bitcoin's adoption.

It's adoption of this technology is more likely due to purposes related to profit. They will benefit as a third party network in every crypto transactions in their network but one thing this industry could benefit from what this network have done is its popularity. Knowing there are numerous users of this network, majority of them could be exposed to this technology, having proportional increase in the popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptos, and there could also be a portion of this population that could engage to this technology as well. And that possibility is already a benefit of this industry, what more if its users become interested.

[XCANA]

Many see the potential since despite of the economic crisis still bitcoins stands and doing a good job for maintaining it's stand compare to any other assets there, that's why by now it gather confidence to the forex trader to shift on it and see some several of them trading bitcoins and cryptocurrency.  And for the PayPal's adoption for sure we can see more from it and maybe more big money will be pour in the market duw to this iconic acceptance happened this year.

There are several situations that aided the cryptocurrency market, the global pandemic that slowed downed the economy and we never know what the economic situation would be in the next five years and all the institutions see the bitcoin market as a safe heaven irrespective of the economic situation globally and these things helped the market drastically and PayPal adoption is one such instance that aided the market.

The world has come to that point where their fiats currency failed woefully(as we saw during the pandemic), we all saw what happened during the corona-virus pandemic which caused nearly the world economy stranded, the world government getting fiats to cushion the hardship of the citizens, the more the economy experience more damage due to inflation. Bitcoin has limited supply which made it different from fiats, so, this is what the rest of the world see to embrace this technology and this will make Bitcoin different compare to 2017.

[TitanGEL]

~snip~

Bitcoin is already mainstream right now. Paypal is very mainstream. It could be used to represent the mainstream financial society and Paypal is now supporting Bitcoin. It may not be in the best way possible and preferable for many of us Bitcoin supporters but it is still a support by perhaps the largest payment system in the world right now. So Bitcoin is very much in the mainstream right now.

It is sad though that you see Bitcoin becoming mainstream just because people are looking for a new source of income. I don't share with this view. This is true but it is not the majority. I think many Bitcoin supporters are still believing and buying Bitcoin because Bitcoin is the future of money and not a source of money.

I admitted that bitcoin become mainstream now, but it needs more adoption in many places to make bitcoin grow. Even if Paypal allows its users to buy bitcoin directly from their account, we still need to spread the news about bitcoin in many places, so more people will know and use bitcoin.

I don't mind if you disagree if I said that bitcoin is becoming mainstream because of the new opportunity to have a new income source, but that is what happens right now. But let us consider bitcoin the same as fiat, which can be the future of money, as you said, and bitcoin is also a source of money that people can get.

Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream but the scale is still very small. It looks big from our perspective to see a big "name" has adopted bitcoin but in reality it is still pretty small, for instance not that many PayPal users use the option they added even though they reported big volumes and even if they do, it would be a one time experiment. Besides, the PayPal move is mostly for their own benefit and survival in long term not for bitcoin's adoption.

Kindly research at the data about institutions or those bitcoin treasuries who hold large amount of money, those bitcoins are just in hardware wallet and that kind of companies are continuing to grow where it has affected to the price of the bitcoin. The upcoming all time high breakout will be different in the year 2017 where the price did not manage to hold and it suddenly dump, right now the market is full of greed so we will see bases that will form that will indicate that there will be major support where we can expect that the price will not suddenly dump like what happened in the year 2017.

[imstillthebest]

the difference would be the speed on how btc price travel because its speed of increase is now noticeably faster than before .

another one is the stability . its surprising that btc retain this high while on the past after the btc reach this high its value then go down faster than when it achieve this ath .

i cant agree to most users that said the attitude of people change but i believe that people are still the same . there are greedy that buys and there are greedy that hodls . seeing the price is an evidence

[UnDerDoG81]

the difference is a pretty simple and obvious one, the 2017 rise was a bubble and today's rise is growth.

it is exactly similar to the 2016-17 rise too when price initially reached the ATH of that time (that was at $1200). the 2013 rise to that ATH was a bubble and price went above the intrinsic value whereas the 2016-17 rise to that ATH was a natural growth that happened based on increasing adoption.
everything else is just explanation and sometimes justification of that increasing demand.

This. Reaching this ATH of 20k is like reaching 1.2k in 2017. The bubble will start at 50-100k and maybe hit 200k before it bursts probably down to 20-30k wich will be the new bottom for the next bubble... If everything follows old patterns... All just speculations of course.

[Febo]

As we approach ATH what is different compared to 2017?

I think that right now way more people expect Bitcoin will make x10 next year as they did at end of 2016 and start of 2017. This sort of scares me since masses are usually wrong in crypto. But on other hand, my knowledge of crypto is much higher as it was in 2016. So i maybe more listen to those that know then those that dont.

[Rebisco]

The sentiment is much stronger than before wherein the upcoming ATH will be much stronger and more popular for sure, I still remembered that when the price are still making ATH in the year 2017 where a lot of news keep popping up over all the countries where it create a massive hype and a lot of people saying "buy bitcoin". The current sentiment is different because a lot of investors are now focusing in this type of investment wherein they already know that this time will finally come. It is really surprising that the price of the bitcoin easily recovered after its crash last March 2020.

[maydna]

~snip~

Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream but the scale is still very small. It looks big from our perspective to see a big "name" has adopted bitcoin but in reality it is still pretty small, for instance not that many PayPal users use the option they added even though they reported big volumes and even if they do, it would be a one time experiment. Besides, the PayPal move is mostly for their own benefit and survival in long term not for bitcoin's adoption.

Perhaps, that is right. But we know everything bigger will start from smaller so that if we think that not many Paypal users use the option to buy bitcoin in their account, it will become bigger sooner or later. People will see by themselves the benefits of bitcoin for them, so they will try to buy bitcoin, even for just a small amount.

But the adoption process for the Paypal users already began, and I am sure that they will need time to see their users will buy bitcoin and use it for their own purposes. But what we will see later will be different in 2017 as right now, many people are trying to figure out what bitcoin is for them and how they can benefit.

[tbterryboy]

Everyone feels and knows that it is not the same as 2017, this year is very different for many reasons. However just ask yourself, what type of year 2020 was for the whole world? Would you say it has been very very bad? I mean aside from just corona, it hasn't been good even without corona right? We didn't had anything marvelous happen this year I suppose?

So, crypto has managed to survive a year that has been one of the worst in living memory, for the past 100 years we never had a global pandemic that literally had lockdown in 100+ nations where it kept people at home and walk around in masks by billions of people and over a million dead. By comparison less people died in the past 50 years from wars, and we had plenty of wars. Even with all of that crypto doubled its price and went near to ATH but falling right now. Make whatever you want with that info.

[DougM]

It looks like ATH was like touching the third rail ...as soon as it touched it a major pull back followed, but I suspect that will be short lived and it will retest ATH before the end of the year.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-s-price-correction-may-not-be-over-on-chain-data-analysts-warn

Ki Young Ju, the CEO of CryptoQuant, said that more corrections might come in the short term. The All Exchanges Inflow Mean indicator, for instance, is still hovering at a high level, suggesting that there is still a lot of selling pressure in the market. He said:

“More $BTC corrections might come. All Exchanges Inflow Mean (144-block MA) remains still high. In my opinion, we’ll face some corrections/sideways this week and it will break $20k by December this year. I’ll stack some sats a few days after.”

In the near term, the key support for Bitcoin is found at $16,000. Below it, the next major support areas to watch are $14,000 and $13,500.

[smyslov]

It looks like ATH was like touching the third rail ...as soon as it touched it a major pull back followed, but I suspect that will be short lived and it will retest ATH before the end of the year.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-s-price-correction-may-not-be-over-on-chain-data-analysts-warn

Ki Young Ju, the CEO of CryptoQuant, said that more corrections might come in the short term. The All Exchanges Inflow Mean indicator, for instance, is still hovering at a high level, suggesting that there is still a lot of selling pressure in the market. He said:

“More $BTC corrections might come. All Exchanges Inflow Mean (144-block MA) remains still high. In my opinion, we’ll face some corrections/sideways this week and it will break $20k by December this year. I’ll stack some sats a few days after.”

In the near term, the key support for Bitcoin is found at $16,000. Below it, the next major support areas to watch are $14,000 and $13,500.

That's what exactly is happening right now, after a big pump there is a correction and the price is moving up again, it's like one step backward and two steps forward, there's a big possibility that the price will eventually reach the $19 k mark and from there it will slowly move up in preparation for the all time high, let's see if this is correct, the market is very much ready for an all time high again.

[Botnake]

It looks like ATH was like touching the third rail ...as soon as it touched it a major pull back followed, but I suspect that will be short lived and it will retest ATH before the end of the year.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-s-price-correction-may-not-be-over-on-chain-data-analysts-warn

Ki Young Ju, the CEO of CryptoQuant, said that more corrections might come in the short term. The All Exchanges Inflow Mean indicator, for instance, is still hovering at a high level, suggesting that there is still a lot of selling pressure in the market. He said:

“More $BTC corrections might come. All Exchanges Inflow Mean (144-block MA) remains still high. In my opinion, we’ll face some corrections/sideways this week and it will break $20k by December this year. I’ll stack some sats a few days after.”

In the near term, the key support for Bitcoin is found at $16,000. Below it, the next major support areas to watch are $14,000 and $13,500.

That's what exactly is happening right now, after a big pump there is a correction and the price is moving up again, it's like one step backward and two steps forward, there's a big possibility that the price will eventually reach the $19 k mark and from there it will slowly move up in preparation for the all time high, let's see if this is correct, the market is very much ready for an all time high again.

Or it could be not, we will know if it will have a new ATH this year if it will be bullish by next month, just like in 2017, December was the most bullish month so if it's the same scenario in 2017, then I think we should start celebrating now.

[BTCappu]

The scale is not really "that" small as many people make it out to be. We are at half a trillion dollar marketcap right now and NASDAQ is at around 7.5 trillion or so which means that we are at around 15 times smaller than NASDAQ. Sure that is lower, specifically 15 times lower, but it is not really small neither, it is something major.

There are really just a few companies that are bigger than crypto for example, we are bigger than many companies all combined. Which is why I believe it is highly important for us to just focus on growing bigger and reaching 1 trillion dollar and even more later but meanwhile, do not sell yourself short neither, even if we fail to go there, we are still great where we are right now. We have to find a balance between liking where we are but also wanting to be bigger as well.

[Ayiranorea]

Everything is different from the 2017 bull market. Starting from the has power requirements, the mining difficulty rise, market adoption, etc. The growth pattern looks somewhat same. With the 2017 market the growth happened in a short and fell back within specific time period when everyone are predicting for the price to touch $25k. This time even before $20k the market has fallen, and the drop is mentioned to be a correction. We don't know what is the real market situation, only time can answer this.