Funny how the ATH was on the day futures went online.
Self fulfilling prophecy.
One thing I've noticed consistently with many people in crypto is the keenness, bordering on desperation, to defer to a higher authority. Futures volumes have been negligible much of the time but that hasn't stopped people blaming it for anything and everything or indeed referring to it for their own trades.
I think that article's a crock of shit in the main. Bubbliness couldn't have gone much further. It was crossing from ludicrous to plain insulting with some of the alt valuations.
There will come a time when instruments like this command things. It's not here yet. That said the concept can affect minds just as much as it being put into practice.
The way I see it the psychological road from 3k to 20k first was driven by people fomo buying btc post bcash launch to chase 'free money' from the countless other shitcoin forks. This attracted massive media attention w absurd price predictions and drew in more buyers. After segwit2x failure attention shifted to futures launch with the 'largest transfer of wealth' 'dumping on wall st' narrative, but there was no room for btc to gain further on futures launch as it was already priced in.