I posted a thread on InLeo yesterday where I said, “Whosoever complain that there was no bull run this year is an ungrateful person. How high would you want BTC to reach when it made a new all-time high of $126k? That you failed to take profits does not mean a bull run did not happen.”
I got some responses from people who felt uncomfortable with my thread. One of the standout response said there was no bull run, that only BTC, ETH, and SOL had a bull run. This response is exactly what I expected, and it is unfortunate that a lot of people still do not understand what is going on in the crypto market in recent times.
The crypto market of today is very different from 2021 when the last bull run happened. The dynamics have changed totally since institutional organizations entered the field and started buying BTC. Normally, when BTC moves, altcoins follow, but that is not what is happening now. BTC seems to be on its own planet.
What changed?
Usually, during a bull run, people are driven by FOMO, which leads to more money coming into the altcoin market. But this time, that is not the case. Money now goes where the news goes. Instead of moving from the top to the bottom, money stays at the top and moves horizontally.
If you check the news items from this time last year to today, it is all about institutional buying of BTC, and to some extent, ETH. This sentiment is what controls the market, and people who saw opportunity in it went into buying Bitcoin — not with fresh money, but by rebalancing their portfolios. You cannot expect altcoins to rise in price when there is no fresh money coming into the market.
Now, we saw BTC make a new all-time high by reaching $126k, but not a single altcoin made a move. Does that mean there was no bull run? Remember what the price of BTC was this time last year.
Perhaps the displeasure people have today is for one of these reasons. Either they bought BTC at the top during the last bull run, which was around $60k, or they failed to take profits during the recent bull run. For someone who bought at the top and waited four years, and managed to sell for profit at $90k, that is like waiting years for just 50% profit — not what many were hoping for. Such a person could feel disappointed.
However, those who bought at the bottom and have been DCA’ing for four years certainly experienced a bull run. That people failed to take profits or sell when BTC made a new all-time high does not erase the fact that a new all-time high was reached, and that alone is evidence of a bull run.
I think using altcoins to judge a bull run is no longer feasible this time. Money coming into the crypto market now moves in parallel lines, and I do not see this changing soon. Institutional money is all for BTC, and unless the same thing happens to altcoins, there may never be a bull run for altcoins again.