Bull Market

A bull market is a sustained period of rising prices and optimistic sentiment, when demand outweighs supply and investors broadly expect further gains. The term — shared with traditional finance — supposedly comes from how a bull attacks, thrusting its horns upward. In crypto, bull markets are dramatic: prices of major assets can multiply several times over, and smaller tokens often rise even more.

Crypto bull markets have historically arrived in cycles, loosely associated with Bitcoin's four-yearly halving events, though the causation is debated. The 2017 bull market took bitcoin from under $1,000 to nearly $20,000; the 2020-2021 cycle carried it from under $10,000 to around $69,000, with an accompanying boom in DeFi and NFTs. A typical bull market pattern is that Bitcoin rises first, then capital rotates into Ethereum and larger altcoins, and finally into speculative small tokens — the late, frothiest stage often marked by meme-coin manias and universal confidence that "this time is different."

A common misconception is that a bull market makes everyone a skilled investor; rising tides lift almost every asset, and gains made by simply holding during a bull phase are often given back by those who mistake luck for skill and take escalating risks near the top. Bull markets also contain sharp corrections — drops of 20 to 30 percent within an ongoing uptrend are historically routine in crypto — so a falling week does not by itself end a bull market, nor does a rising one begin it.