At first I too disliked that distorted chart, it's trying to make the matrix fit your narrative.
Some overlays are more convincing than others, and likely the most accurate overlays are the one that are done retrospectively, rather than prospectively. Go figure.
Don't get me wrong, there remains some value in recognizing how momentum has historically played out and attempting to verify the extent to which the current pattern fits and/or is deviating from such historical comparatives.
By May of 2016, we already had a pretty decent idea that bitcoin was not dead. 2015 was a bit more unclear regarding the "deadness" status of bitcoin, even while November 2015 showed some considerable signs of life there continued to exist quite a bit of uncertainty until the end of May 2016 when BTC prices busted back above $500 again.
I would characterize 2017 as kind of ongoing desperation attempts to keep bitcoin down as low and for as long as possible, and some other folks considering, as well, that it could be the last times that they could really take over or change bitcoin, and sure the end of 2017 - especially by late August 2017 with further confirmation at the giving up of the segwit2x fudsters, ended up serving as strong demonstration that bitcoin is the king, and its lack of maleability is quite robust as a feature rather than a bug.
That's true. There is a lot more acceptance in terms of financialization adoption, but I would not be so smug as to attempt to assert that all of bitcoin's battles are over. There are still decent sized institutions who would really like to figure out a way to keep bitcoin down lower and for longer if they are able to, and there could still be some rabbits in their hat that allow them to drag out the down period and even attempt to push BTC prices lower through additional disinformation campaigns. So sure, there could be some front running of the model, and those of us who are largely already "in" bitcoin would likely profit more from such likely front running - but I still would not take front running (or compression as you say) for granted.