I think institutional investors are a long way off. There is barely one hedge fund investing in bitcoin. ETF's are in the planning phase. Likely some institutional investors heard about bitcoin in this recent bubble, but how long did it take you to invest after you heard about it for the first time? It took me 1 year of ignoring it after that, and another year of rejecting it before I folded, and I consider myself a critical knowledgeable independent investor that is free to invest in anything and doesn't need to report to anyone.

What we saw a month ago when it dropped to $65 was not despair. Despair was in 2011.

Right before the recent drop to $65 most were still bulls here. And when that drop crossed $80 some prominent people here became bear and spammed the forum. I saw for the first time the forum switching to mostly bears and indeed there was fear and finally an agreement that we indeed are in a bear market (took them a 3 month long drop from $266 to below $80 before finally recognizing! *shrugs head*). And now it's again 50/50 bulls/bears.

We might not get capitulation and despair this time around, agreed, but if anything we are in the back to normal phase with some fear right before.


More indications against the 'return to the mean' is that not a single chart will draw a line corresponding with the pre-bubble growth to the current $100, they all point to somewhere around $50.