The drop can be sooner than mid next year IMO. Taking the scene of 2017 bull , it didn't last the whole year before the cirrection started , it went down to bear. Bitcoin went this high because of covid-19 fears and many investors pushed money to bitcoin. So I think with the vaccine, there will be reduction of cases and confidence may return to the way things were. Some investors are not enthusiasts, so they may cash out anytime there is a little correction and that can cause drop.
Even if i accept that the price of
BTCitcoin rallied this much because of the pandemic you cannot expect the market to return back to normal even if the vaccines are mass produced because the damage that has done to the economy is really high and most of the government were pumping money into the market which is not the best way to counter these and it can cause inflation in the long run. If your argument of panic buying is the main cause then that situation will relevant for the coming years as well.
My point of view is that many investors will book their profit and the major rally in the market is supported by institutional investors and it has nothing to do with the pandemic with the way they were investing and once they start booking the profit we might see a major correction.
Normally the panic scheme causes sales to increase, it can be said that now due to the pandemic Bitcoin rises much more, there are reasons not only for market speculation, but also for the ease of moving money without leaving home and in a way safe.
The correction is normal in the market, simply what can be done is to wait, but I do not think the same will happen in 2017, the downward trend came very quickly for that year, but they were other conditions, there was no institutional investment that now participates In the market, the living conditions were different, the panic was not latent as it currently is, I think that everything that happens in the Bitcoin market will be much more difficult to predict, as well as to predict the maximum that can reach this 2021.
Many bet that when reaching $ 100k this will explode, but although it will be many sales, I do not think it is the end of the bullish stage, the institutional investment that has arrived at the moment did not do it to earn little, they are doing it to win in big.