Opinion: We Haven’t Had a Bull Market Since 2021 [yet]

Moving my large ass reply from someone else's post into it's own for consideration and comments. Before I see more people capitulate and post their r/cryptocurrency farewells, lets address the reality of crypto in recent years:

We never had a proper crypto bull market. Relative to historical cycles, BTC barely performed.. achieving a 1.5x from last ATH. And this is with Saylor blasting billions into every local top he could. The macroeconomic climate was like a wet blanket on crypto this cycle (more on that later).

BTC had a decent (but small) bull run, but alts never saw a rotation [alt season]. They weren't dead; alts logged meager gains since 2022, but the total altcoin market never surpassed 2021 levels, and is currently far below it.

Isolated moves like Solana or XRP were from the remaining crypto holders (us) FOMO rotating our bags into short lived narratives, or gambling on memechain aka Solana. No new meaningful money entered the space since 2021 (aside from mixed results with ETFs).

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To drive home my point, lets use stocks: Did you know for the past two years (2023, 2024) that the Magnificent 7 comprised 80% of all gains in the stock market? People were too scared to invest in into anything else.

To me thats pretty clear evidence that we didn't have a real broad-based bull market, we had an isolated rally on the back of AI narratives during an otherwise bearish period, with an unhealthy macro.

BTC performance was similar, ETFs, adoption, Trump- and of course Saylor blasted literal $17 BILLION DOLLARS into BTC and that certainly had an impact.

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That doesn't mean progress wasn't made in crypto: on the ETF and regulatory front we had massive wins. In terms of building, some cool stuff happened.

But price lagged.. why?

I'm sure someone will disagree, but imo 90% of the reason is due to the macroeconomic climate.

The period since 2021's bull ended has been one of declining global liquidity and higher rates: with central banks seeking to squeeze demand from an overheated market.

Reducing demand? Less liquidity? Well it shouldn't surprise you that the first thing to fall, and hardest to fall, is [very] risky assets. Guess what is very far out on the risk spectrum? Altcoins! And while BTC is transitioning to a SoV, it still has one leg firmly in high risk still.

Another way to view crypto is as a high beta tech stock. Very volatile but higher RoI than traditional equities if you can stomach the volatility and time it right.

As I said earlier, except for isolated FOMO pumps by mentally unwell people like us that haven't left crypto- we are only seeing minimal new entrants to crypto.

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What are the conditions for a proper bull market where say BTC exceeds $110k, ETH $5k, SOL $300? We probably want to see like.. 2 or 3 of the items below play out:

~1.) we need to largely resolve the tariffs; on a 1-10 scale of diplomatically and strategically rolling out new tariffs, with 1 being very strategic and diplomatic, and 10 being anarchist crazy insane: we can score this tariff rollout as a 13.

~2.) we need the Fed to lower rates more and/or pivot to QE. Note: conditions for this are probably either inflation continuing to tick down (even in the face of tariffs) or something "breaking" like a proper market crash and recession in the U.S.

~3.) we want to see global M2 [liquidity] continue to rise, indicating more money for investing, with excess comes additional flows into riskier assets.

~4.) we want to see supply continue to tick down for majors like BTC and ETH. Given how extreme market conditions are currently, if supply continues to decline, thats a positive sign.

~5.) separate but related: before any proper alt cycle, we need to see BTC Dominance (market share) retreat to below 50% ideally

If you are thinking of capitulating today and selling at lows.. IF you don't need that money, you might be better served holding what you have, and slowly DCA'ing into BTC, ETH, maybe SOL. But that is entirely up to your individual risk appetite and disposable income.