Maybe it's the halving and miners pumping to maintain income?
In the short term, Bitcoin gonna make a bunch of people richer, but with the majority of those who take a bite of the apple, ending up poorer, just cos this is the way zero sum games like financial asset trading must be.
How can this be a zero sum game, when there is only a limited number of bitcoins on one side and an endless amount of fiat on the other ?
Cos the aim of the game isn't to be holding a big pile of BTC, but to extract as much fiat from the market as possible.
Smart money takes their positions. The market pumps, Smart Money exits and stops supporting the market. The market inevitably crashes. Smart Money extracted from the market 4-5 times more fiat than Smart Money orignally invested. That money had to come from somewhere...thus, the majority always lose. Hence, zero sum game.
In a market where the price simply returns to the pre-pump level you are correct. But the bitcoin market cap is growing and with it the wealth of those who hold the underlying asset - in that respect it is not a zero sum game.
Minor trading oscillations that you get so perturbed about predicting (impossible) are not what is important. The overall trend is what matters and that is clear to even you as you keep coming back here year after year. (Hint: up).