Or did people start to realize the significance of HODL and act accordingly?
It's big challenge for everyone especially newbies and new investors.
It makes sense to hold their coins, right? Because they have been here long enough to realize that they will end up in loss if they sell at bear market, so just being patient while holding for the next bull run.
It makes sense absolutely but not all people can do that, and even they are actually holding their coins, they do that differently with each other.
Holding times of different investors will be different, and it depends on their financial status, investment plan, as well as whether they are able to hold their coins a long time. Even they want to hold their coins for 2 or 3 market cycles, if their finance is not good enough, their risk management is unwell like they don't have saving fund, emergency fund, they will suddenly have to sell their coins.
There are more people who understand about holding magic power for profit in long term but there are always newbies in the market. In addition, with time and cycles, ROIs annually and cyclically will become smaller. It can make holding less attractive with some people, then possibly they will turn from holding to trading or newbies will feel no reasons to hold.