2017 demand was obviously a manipulated pump all in the name of trying to get gullible smaller investors into the market and we have all seen the outcome so far. For now, I guess we just have to wait to see how far this $5k region is going to end up holding until further notice.
i agree with the first part but this part i can not agree with.
what happened in 2017 was not a pump, there was manipulation but the rise to $20k would have happened anyways and it is not because of manipulation, it was because a lot of money was coming in during 2017 and that kind of rise is what naturally happens when you have a tiny market with thin order books which can not have any kind of resistance against that kind of money so the price shoots up.
it was real demand, if you check the news reports you can see for instance coinbase used to have about 1 million new users every couple of days! and those people were coming in because everywhere you looked you could see bitcoin was discussed.
What you are forgetting to ask yourself is that; what instigated the quick surge in price in the first place. We all know money was coming into the market; otherwise the market will not even be rising.
However, the question is how this money came into the market. Actually, I would not say that was because there was a real demand for it, or because a lot of people are seeing the long term prospect in being a part of the future, it is simply because most people that join FOMO just want to get rich overnight, while the real believers buy the bottom.
As long as there would be weak hands, market will always be pumped and manipulated by the whales, to feed on those greedy fellows who their only mission is to see ways they can obtain so much from the market in a short term. By the way, pump and manipulations is concurrent in nature.