Topic: In restrospective, how do you explain and assess 2017 run? (Read 233 times)

Your post was interesting, I am bumping this after today's unusual patterns. Wondering if the media have anything to do with it, or simply big investors?

Today's situation reminds me late September 2019 when Bitcoin price went from 7.5k to 9k very quickly, but this time it's an opposite move.

 

For me 6.4k support was key, but I cannot explain how we went from 7.5k to 6.5k that quickly.

Interest, followed by irrational exuberance, followed by panic, and now apathy. I think there are more bubbles to come, though they will continue to get smaller as utility and adoption increase.

Well, each BTC cycle is longer than a previous one (what is a sign of maturing market), so then we may expect the real bull run in 2020-21. What would be the price level? When the market is getting more mature, usually the volatility goes down, so then it could be that $100k will not be reached in this decade. Still (tinfoil hat on mode), it could happen that if whales (among whom it is commonly believed there are big investment companies, like funds and banks) will manipulate the market in a longer pump and dump scheme boosted by the mainstream media, we could see a similar run like in 2017 (but maybe to $50k level top this cycle).

But then if you will see almost everywhere headlines about how great BTC is, it would definitely not be the time to buy more (as an investment), rather opposite...

Fair enough. But I wonder if even such hype could make Bitcoin price move so suddenly, we know cryptocurrency markets are not mature markets but still that's a huge amount of money needed.
If what you write is correct (which is absolutely possible) then it means Bitcoin price will basically never reach 100k, or at least not this decade. But deep inside I want to believe other factors came into play, namely manipulation from very big investors. Since early 2018 I noticed the price merely follows trading indicators, it has almost 0% fundamental right now, the price from 2018 has basically followed the same patterns we saw from 2013 to 2015.

And this makes me curious about a repeat of 2017 run in 3 or 4 years from now, just because of pure trading action. Definitely possible   I just hope next time people will be more careful, but we know they won't as FOMO can be very powerful.  

This was a good example of how mass-media can fuel the hype and actively participate in the creation of a bubble leading to terrible losses and harming crypto environment.

In TV, many non-crypto oriented websites we kept constant inflow of how great bitcoin is, greatest investment in history...and as such unfortunately it made thousands of people looking for easy and cheap investment to put their savings in BTC close to the peak of the bubble. People who knew nothing about blockchain and never heard about BTC before.
Hell, even taxi drivers at 3 AM were so overenthusiastic about BTC.

This is why ATH of 2017 was beyond reasonable expectations.

And in our eyes, this 2017 run resulted in strengthening the whales - who literally could make a fortune, and then slowly in 2018 and beginning of 2019 could hoard their portfolios - and the panic and crypto winter made this job easy.

there was a mix of emotional FOMO. and alot of buying up year long vaulted contracts that caused the 2017 hype bubble. but overall it was just a temporal spike that had no substance to hold it up
by summer of 2018 the correction of ~$6k and then the further value reassessment of ~$k as winter approached. re-assessed peoples fears of speculating.

alot of traders smartened up and since then not many have risked pumping the market for short term gins of 300% of value, instead they have changed their trading models for regular 1-5% nibbles more often knowing that over all it will add up to more profits with less risk

that $20k was not built by anything tangeable and was truly a bubble.
try not to look forward to another 300% increase thinking that it would hold. im sorry but it wont. try to stay rational and hope for small percentages over time.

It was the perfect storm in a way. Some stars lined up and some stars were made to line up.
1. Bitcoin hit mainstream and started becoming a conversation at the "enlightened" tables of non technical people.
2. "Gentle" nudges and manipulation from several market makers.
3. Synergetic direct and indirect participation from certain governmental strata and policy makers was definitely a catalyst.
4. and of course a pinch of (as one of the greatest frauds called it) "irrational exuberance"

Gooood Times 

2017 was the year I made and lost 5 figures literally.

Worse than the Dot-com boom.

2017 had the building of a bullish trade  from the beginning of the year to the ending. It later climaxed into high high at the tail end of the year till it ended..

Gotta admit I was one of those people who were pulled with all the talks about Bitcoin last 2017. Bought and stocked mine, though I also "bear-ed" as well after the bubble, missed some small bubbles along the way that looked like a good opportunity to trade. But still, I'm hoping that the future is bright and opportunity and history will and will repeat itself. I still believe it was the right call to hold. Heck, I might buy again with the current price and just stock more.

I agree..
I don't think that last pump was unusual and see no reason it won't happen again as it has done over and over in history..

One problem I see is TX throughput capacity, which I think had some part in stopping or slowing the last pump, and was good ammo for fudders to fud about..

I think it was a bit of a bubble, yes, driven by FOMO and a slew of media articels as the price rose, which drew in new blood, which pushed the price higher...

However, this sort of price movement is not unprecedented. It just looks that way on a linear-scale price chart, because bitcoin has periods like this of phenomenal exponential growth, which reduces previous bull runs to flat smears.

You really need to switch the charts to logarithmic scale to get some perspective (below). Now we can see both the cyclic pattern and the general upwards movement. It becomes apparent that the 2017 rise was not as crazy as it seemed, and also that the terrible bear market that followed was also not quite as bad as it seemed.

On log scale, the future still looks very bright indeed

Hi folks,

I personally got into Bitcoin mid-2017, after two years I almost forgot how it felt that Nov-Dec run back in the day, but just for the fun of it I was reading the "live chat" on this page https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.371760 and I could suddenly "feel" the frenzy of that period again.

Something unique (for me), I was a bit in stocks before but never felt something of that sort.

So what I remember was buying around 3.5k in July, and monitoring the price every week (I was not crazy about it though, would monitor twice a week). Then BTC dropped from 4k area to 3k because of some Chinese news, I think it was in September or October.

In early November, the price came back around 3.5k-4.5k... but what I remember was that I had to catch a long flight from Asia to Europe, at the time I wasn't always checking on my smartphone (didn't have that habit, good old times), and at the end of November the price started to really go up, and it didn't feel healthy.

I was texting some friends that are not into BTC and they were stunned as well... I remember well when BTC got to 10k and I think it went to 11k very quickly too... the rest in history, a massive run, unreal run to 15k, then 19k  

2 years later, how do you explain this?  

Let's be honest, most of us were very happy and didn't care to explain or even understand what happened... and many of us didn't sell as well because 30k and 50k were close enough  

But what happened, really?

I think I remember reading at the time that "Wall Street" was involved. But still, what the F happened in that Nov-Dec period? Whales? How many million dollars do you need to inject for your Bitcoins to witness such a sudden run?

Was it also a real bubble that burst at the time, and maybe we'll never see a new ATH?

Constructive opinions always welcome!