I don't believe that it will be possible this year. Now the market cap is 280 billion dollars. When bitcoin cost 20k $, the market cap was around 800 billion dollars. Is it possible by the end of the year market will receive twice as much money as it was in December ATH? The chances of it are very small.
I agree with your logic. The market cap would need to increase minimum three times in order for BTC to break the 20k mark. Everything is possible but it's highly unlikely to happen if some big whales don't invest again and pump it up.
I think that the price of BTC will in the end rise exponentially. It'll struggle to break 10k and then maybe around 40-50k will be hardest but when it hits that 50k it will skyrocket to 100k-200k-500k because everyone will invest in it. They won't doubt it anymore. It'll be a global phenomenon and the people who invested first will have the biggest gains of course.