Comparing the crypto spikes of 2013 and 2017

At first glance, those years look pretty alike, but history doesn’t just replay itself... What were the key differences between the two strongest bull runs (2013 and 2017) that feel so distant now?

For me, the percentage of returns like you can make more money in those bull markets compared to the past few years or recent bull markets. I think that's normal, as the market cap of the entire crypto market is growing already, trading volume is now huge, institutional money, more retail investors coming in, trading volumes, etc.

Of course the second poster is correct because the market isn't the way it's now compared to then as it gains more exposure, and more adoption, liquidity are being flowing into the market due to institutional investors, also private investors and government also involving themselves into the crypto game. There were people who missed the early time of crypto due to criticism and hatred to cryptocurrency but today they are regretting. And Yes, there seems to be different because often time we do say that history repeats itself but last halving clearly indicates that historical Data do varies most times.

I do not think it is normal that people can make money in those bull run than now, the problem is that their are many shit coins that are created now. Some still move more than 10 to 25 times or more but because the coins are too many now, many of the coins are not increasing much. One of the reasons are the ethereum and many other networks that began what is called tokens, they have many tokens on their blockchain leading to crypto industry having hindered of thousands of coins. According to Coinmarketcap, there are millions of coins now.

I’m not active during 2013 so I can’t give an opinion that year but during 2017 crypto becomes hype due to the ICO on altcoin market. Huge fresh volume of money enter to crypto to buy altcoins on ICO and choose Bitcoin as safe haven after they profited on altcoin investment. There’s a cycle back then that Bitcoin will pump first then it will slightly dump which Altcoin market overtake to pump then they both Bitcoin and Altcoin will dump together. During 2013, there’s few trading volume back then so a simple few whale buy huge amount will pump the price.

I bet that before Winklevoss Twins there were no rich people who invested the significant percentage of wealth into crypto. The Winklevoss started to invest in 2013 and the 2013-boom was to the great extent Winklevoss-created ?

It's diminished return for sure and I'm sure tons of people will agree with me if they witnessed the pump. If you calculate from the gain, the earliest bullrun were always giving the most ROI. It was wild and it was nowhere the stability of bullrun in this recent years. The return so far has diminished because bitcoin has become big enough that even billion dollar worth of bitcoin buying from Strategy become irrelevant. If it was back in 2013 the price would've skyrocket so dramatically. Unfortunately I wasn't really paying attention back then.

The main difference is the institutional investors. They didn’t exist back in 2013 and 2017. They arrived after 2020 as far as I know and they have all the tools to manipulate the prices. In other words, bitcoin (and crypto) got “institutionalized”. Now they can play leverage games forever the same way they do it with gold and silver. It doesn’t matter if they run out of crypto. It doesn’t matter if their cold wallets are empty. They can issue USDT and pay off their debts, the same way COMEX does.

Big amen, that access for institutional investors changed the market drastically. I think you can add 2018 when Fidelity Investments launched Fidelity Digital Assets. That was the time when the first really big players entered the market and could play their leverage games, but it was still not as bad as you pointed out, 2020 onwards. For many of them it doesn't matter whether the price is $120k or $70k as that is what manipulation is about, start a leveraged position and push the market in your favour. But with all of this is there is one problem I think, and that is the diminishing block reward. The speculators/manipulators may not care too much about the price, but it can't stay at a too low level or otherwise miners would get into trouble and along with them bitcoin security. Could that be a critical aspect they will have in mind while playing their games? Ah and before we forget, it is not only money that can now manipulate the bitcoin price, it's politics too. Once Trump's family has loaded their bags, I think some good news will be coming...

On the negative side, it could be that the market can easily be manipulated as it is not as big as what we have today. There could be whales during that time, but not as many of the current market. We still don't have the poster boy, Michael Saylor around that time. He just involved himself and his company Strategy around 2020. And probably the hype of the altcoin market has seen many facelift since that time, from ICO to whatever we have right now.

There were different pros and cons at the time. You had incredibly harsh dilution due to the proliferation of alt coins (shit coins) and they were all a thing back then. Traders jumped back and forth and so on. I think that is less the case today as people realised that 99% or more than that are shit coins indeed. As for the whales back then and their potential to manipulate the market, theoretically you only got stronger whales today. Back then maybe a few billionaires could manipulate the market, but by now you have whales that have much stronger financial means, therefore much more potential to manipulate market. I assume in relative terms not too much has changed since back then.

Massed discovered Bitcoin in 2013 and in altcoins in 2017, the last resulted in the biggest cryptocurrencies overvaluation - the end of 2017 was the worst time for crypto buying (and best time for selling) all over their 18 years history.