This bull cycle will be different, here's my two sats

I was orange pilled a year ago, and I'm already on my way to becoming a bitcoin / MSTR maxi. I have also been studying the TradFi market, listening to podcasts of economists, and try to keep up with the geopolitical news.

Earlier bitcoin bull cycles were fuelled mainly by retail. Since the ETF launch, we've seen more retail participation, but also from institutional investors. MSTR really changed the game and now more than 70 (?) publicly traded companies have bitcoin on their balance sheet. MSTR is coming up with 'debt instruments' such as STRK / STRF which funnel money from pension funds, IRAs etc into bitcoin. Nations and US states have established bitcoin reserves and are adding more bitcoin as we speak.

Add political uncertainty. Gold is going to an all time high, and several influencial people like Jerome Powell, Larry Fink and others have compared bitcoin to Gold. Saylor is screaming from the rooftop that bitcoin is the best asset, and has challenged companies like Microsoft to buy bitcoin knowing that they won't -- but it was to create more awareness.

Bitcoin has gone a long way from being a risk asset to being adopted as a 'strategic reserve'. I think the bull cycle is just getting started. The buyers are mostly long term investors (including companies and nations) who are buying with the intention of HODLing, and sellers are short term traders getting flushed out. This will continue to happen but we'll probably never seen a big drop (>20%) again in bitcoin. We will probably never have a 4-yr cycle again, because the halving will make little to no effect now that more than 94% of the bitcoin have been mined. Neither will we see big gains of 10% or higher in a day, as most big money transacts OTC. However, there will be a time when there will be a supply crunch on the exchanges, and that's when retail will start buying driving up the price a lot more.

I think this is THE most bullish phase of bitcoin. Do not sell your bitcoin!