I bought my first bitcoin and litecoin in 2014. Then the market crashed and stayed low for years. I lost interest, and I felt like I had some worthless internet money hat I wasted real USD on.
I moved on with my life, and kind of assumed that the media hype, and market manipulation (williebot) pushes the price to an unrealistic $1200...and with the fall of mount gox the good times were over.
Than 2017 came along and things picked up...the media hype swelled. Average people like my friends were buying crypto. It climbed to 20K...Than the crash...and pretty much everyone got burned.
What Im trying to decide in my head...is whether the 2018 crash is like the 2014 crash, or if it is something different entirely. I discussed with my non crypto father in law the other day, and I said Ive been down this road before. But I STILL think Bitcoin is going to reach 20K again and beyond eventually. He disagreed. His feeling was that it was too saturated this time, that was the difference. Too many people got involved. There was too much institutional interest, unlike the 2014 crash where the pinnacle was really just chasing Dorian around by the media asking if he was Satoshi.
My point? Is it possible my father in law is right? Perhaps the 2017 boom and bust was fueled by such a higher level of public awareness than the 2014 crash, that this could have been the absolute peak. (I dont believe it...but maybe Im delusional!)