Bitcoin at $17k today is very different than Bitcoin at $17k three years ago

A lot can happen in 3 years, and in bitcoin and crypto a lot has happened.

Rewind the clock back to this time in 2017 and bitcoin was running up hundreds of dollars just about every single day.

Retail was piling in and happy to tell all their friends and family about it over Thanksgiving dinner.

However, bitcoin is very different at $17k this time around vs back in 2017.

(Source:

https://twitter.com/Bitcoin/status/1328726170964164611/photo/1

- Bitcoin

)

There are a number of differences but I will just touch on a few in this post here.

The first major difference is where bitcoin came vs where it is today compared to back in 2017.

Back in 2017, bitcoin started the year around $1k, so for it to get to $17k, it had to run up 17x in less than a year.

This time around bitcoin started the year around $7k, which means at $17k it's barely up more than 2x.

If it were to repeat that same pattern from back in 2017, the price would need to go to about $119k by the end of this year.

Not going to happen.

This brings me to my second point why this rally is different, retail hasn't FOMO'd in yet.

This can be evidenced by the lack of movement in bitcoin searches on google as well as the lack of bitcoin mentions on Twitter.

This market is being driven by institutions that were not in 3 years ago.

They will drive the price high enough to eventually sucker retail in and pass the torch off to them, at that point the price will have a blow off top and crash.

We are probably a long ways off from that happening still.

For these reasons, and more, bitcoin at $17k today is very different than bitcoin at $17k back in 2017.