The last bull market started slow. The bitcoin halving, the traditional catalyst for bullruns in the past, was in May 2020 but things didn’t get crazy till January 2021. See this chart for MATIC(polygon) as an example:

Polygon wasn’t the first of the coins to ‘pop’ but they’re a good example of what happened during this time. Lots of coins and tokens experienced a similar price surge and the surge lagged the halving by at least 6 months.

So can we use this historic data to predict an upcoming bull run and make some good investments now? Well, maybe… but there are some important differences between 2020 and 2024. Last time around we were in the midst of a pandemic, lockdowns and stimulus cheques.

So back then people were home, bored and cash rich looking for somewhere to put their money.  This time round we have high inflation and lots of examples of high-profile crypto fraud ringing in our ears. So the conditions now could be summarized as people have less money, potentially working more so have less time to catch any hype and are now extra cautious about where they put their money.  

That said, there are numerous examples of people who made a fortune during the last bull run as well as those who lost one to fraud or greed. Everyone knows when you walk into a casino the house is going to win, yet millions of people go to Vegas every year in the hop they will be one to win big.

Since the last bull market there have been millions of people turn into adults with their own money and their own desire to do well and when the market gets going again they and others will be looking to place their chips on the roulette table. Not that I’m suggesting all crypto is gambling, but a lot of it is. The masses, that drive the huge price surges we all want to see, love a flutter. Bless them.

If we look again at the ~6-to-8 month lag of prices surges following the halving, that would suggest that this time around, with the halving being in April this year, the bull run will start in October/November time.

But how do we know if history will repeat?

We don’t. There are many different factors at play now. In addition to the ones above you can add regulatory uncertainty, large holdings of big institutions/nation states and political turmoil in the major peace-keeping forces of the world (the big players of NATO) particularly significant with the various tension points in the world getting more tense.    

I’m going to monitor the price movements over the coming months closely. I’m going to buy up small amounts of various small currencies that I think have a bit of potential, set my exit price on them and stick to it.

Unless I get incredibly lucky I’m not going to be a crypto millionaire this time around, but I might just play the market to my advantage better than I did last time and cash out at the right point.