Historic lessons: biggest bears that have hug-trapped Bitcoin in the past

One year ago, in December 2017, Crypto investors and enthusiasts enjoyed the highest injection of dopamine and adrenaline ever experienced. Bitcoin price rose to a new impressive All Time High (ATH) of about 20,000 dollars. Everybody thought BTC would dominate the world subsequently. In the expressions of most influencers and popular thinkers, 2018 was depicted as a promising year with probably even higher ATHs and the manifestation of Mass Adoption. Of course, now we know that those premonitions were precipitated. The past was ignored in a moment of total euphoria.

How was that past? Could we have known by December 2017, even while rising up to that moon, what the real probabilities were for the immediate future. Statistical analysis would say “yes”. It was at least very plausible to produce much better guesses than the blindly optimistic ones that plagued all media. Yes. The past was clear. Previous Bitcoin’s ATHs have, in most cases, been followed by violent corrections. These are the lessons of the past, the lessons we do not want to forget anymore.

The first moon in 2011.

The first moon in 2011.

Anybody can see Bitcoin history by just zooming in graphs. During the unfolding of the year 2011, for about one whole year —just about what we saw during 2017 for the entire year— Bitcoin rose and rose. Those were very early days. Bitcoin was not yet in the minds of hundreds of millions of people. But during this year, it gained a lot of attention. In 2011 BTC showed a growth of about 3,100%. This is more than 30x in less that one year. The actual rise made Bitcoin go from $1.00 of price to the unimaginable price of $32.00. In the small world of Crypto, adrenaline and dopamine intoxicated followers. Things looked bright.

2012 made the big brown and polar bears awake. It seems they sleep deeply only in certain periods and, after a pronounced spike, they suddenly wake up and spread their domination. In that moment, Bitcoin price moved all the way back almost to its original price and it maintained near $2.00 for many months. 2018 looks so much like 2012. In that moment, nonetheless, the debacle took about half a year to find a solid resistance in the low level of a $2.00 price.

Bitcoin had to struggle from about mid 2012 to near mid 2013, very slowly and unsteadily, to regain some track and position itself in the price of $13.00. It was still not even close to the ATM BTC had seen 18 months in the past. The old happy days of December 2011 seemed just a dream. But, of course, visionaries continued applying the only formula that has always worked and that has created new ATMs every some years: the formula was to work hard and to build more tangible products and services.

Back to the stars in 2013

Next bull run deserves to be observed closely. One can zoom in the first period of BTC that CoinMarketCap shows us now. By selecting the period between August 2013 and August 2015 —2 whole years— one can see one of the most intense moments of the history of Bitcoin and, indirectly, of all Crypto. The price started rising and rising. The ancient ATH of $30.00 was smashed. By August, the price was above $100.00. Things looked amazing already. But people would not imagine what was to come later. No other moment resembles the 2017 euphoria like the feeling people must have experimented in December 2013. The price went from $100 to $1,145.00 in December of that year.

Just as 2018 has been of total depression as seen from the perspective of the ATH of December 2017, in the very exact same way, 2014 was terribly bearish and fatal from the point of view of those who celebrated the ATH of December 2013. During 2014 Asia became more and more present in Crypto. And in that moment China participated in an apparently negative way. For the first time a country attacked and banned Bitcoin. FUD of the highest quality and fatality was being born.

As the charts let us remember now, 2014 was completely a correction year. The correction even extended to 2015. The price fell and fell for many months, slowly. The negative slope one can see in the charts even now looks painful. The price moved back from $1,145 to about $185 in January 2015. During 2015 the price did not show intention to go back close to $1,000. And it was until the end of 2015 that the level of $400 was re-conquered. To be precise, the level of $1,000 was not seen until January 2017.

A mini-moon before the big moon in 2017

Bitcoin and, all the altcoins together with it, have had many mini-moons too, not only big ones. Each one hides its own drama. One that is worth retaking is the mini-moon of September 2015. Price had been rising since January. It reached the super ATH of about $5,000 per BTC, a price considered insanely impressive in that moment. This is recent history of last year. Many would probably remember how, in practically a few days or a week, the price fell suddenly to near $2,900.00. It was catastrophic. Many bearish news and panic invaded crypto market for some days. Of course, everybody forgot these bears because they left soon. October and November paved the way for the Leviathan of all moons that was going to manifest in December and also in January of 2018.

Bears behave in a somewhat predictable way, apparently. They are not totally chaotic or aleatory. It has never been the case in the history of Crypto that a bullish period extended for several years of long duration. A year of growth and powerful domination, tends to be a sign of a new period of depression coming. We also know that these depressions have never resolved in a few months. One year of euphoria tends to be payed with about two years of unstoppable falling in price, and also with anxiety and stress. History has shown to us, nevertheless, that if we continue building new technology and solutions on top of the Blockchain during the two sad years, new extraordinary growth and new ATHs prove to be the tendency.