Agreed it's prudent to watch our hopium intake, Hairy, but 2020 seems awfully long for a return to $6k. Granted, we had a nearly 2-year downturn after Mt Gox from 2014-5 with little to no good news, but as far as fundamentals go, 2019 seems ripe for recovery.

What are your assumptions on big ticket items? To name a few expected in the first half of 2019:

Van Eck/CBOE ETF (admittedly low chances)
Bakkt
Fidelity Digital Assets
Nasdaq Futures

Are you thinking these things won't happen or rather they simply won't make much of a speculative difference? Are you weighing your prediction primarily on prior halving cycles? Are you correlating with global stock market expectations?

I worry that speculative interest is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of chart analysis and pattern matching. The 2014 overlay to 2018 is eerily similar, yes, but is this simply a case of humans seeking solace in pattern matching?

Meanwhile, the lightning network is exponentially expanding, BCash is conveniently self-immolating, blockchain investment and employment numbers are steadily increasing, etc etc.

Sure, miners seem SOL, nothing new there; but I suspect new miners will find new places to slurp up cheap/stranded power, further decentralizing the network.