It's going to get harder to reach new highs the larger this market becomes, so it wouldn't surprise me if we at one point have a period of 5-10 years between bottoms and highs, similar to how boom and bust cycles work in legacy markets.
I don't think that we're at that stage yet, but after breaking $20k and making higher highs, the process of bottoming out afterwards will be painful and slow, where a new all time high (if ever) will also take a very long time.
Completely agree with you, mate. It's becoming harder for Bitcoin to get past its latest ATHs after a long-standing bear market. Right now, it has declined considerably in price going from nearly $10k to just $8.3K in a matter of days. We only have a few months before the end of the year, and looking at the current market trend for Bitcoin, it seems that it might take a little longer before it gets past $20K. After Bitcoin crosses the goal of $20k per coin, then I would expect for it to continue a positive uptrend in price for at least a couple of months later. Everything will be the same as 2017, where prices kept rising towards new ATHs in price.
Perhaps, 5 years may be a short estimate for Bitcoin reaching $100k after all. That's because price movement is rather slow, than we've ever thought. We need something that would increase demand for Bitcoin within the mainstream world. I believe that the Lightning Network will help with this, but without proper marketing/promotion, everything will be the same as it is right now. Mainstream crypto companies like Coinbase and Binance, would need to adopt the Lightning Network at a large scale in order to attract people into it. Only then, demand for Bitcoin will rise at an unprecedented rate like never before. In the meantime, while prices are still low, it would be best to buy as much Bitcoin as you can with your Fiat currency of choice before it's too late. I have a feeling that this opportunity will not last for long as institutional investors come into play within the not-so-distant future. All in all, we should be prepared for the next bull market which could happen anytime. Just my thoughts