Reason's why a "bull-run" is next to impossible this time around

In 2017 things were a lot different than they are now. The economy was in a strong position after recovering from the 2009-2011 economic crisis . Access to credit was almost as easy as ordering a pizza and Donald Trump was just completing his first year in office. Capital markets were starting to rebound and the sentiment surrounding investing was at an all time high.

With this being said, a lot of that sentiment has long since passed. All the major capital markets dropped by over 30% in the course of two months at the start of 2020 and the concept of low-risk investments safe-havens like the NYSE and the DJI took on a new meaning.

Many people who were heavily vested in these markets got scared and dumped large portions of their holdings on the way down in an attempt to protect their retirement portfolios and never bought back in to recover said loses on the way back up. Some individuals would state that these people were to blame, but when you consider the fact that many of these portfolios were built over decades at a average rate of return of 3-7 percent per year, it is easy to see why a lot of these individuals got scared after they saw a 10,20, and finally a 30 percent dump in the course of weeks.

Nevertheless, investing has never been for the faint at heart. Usually, people who didn't want any risk exposure would just save their money, now with negative interest rates and inflation, that isn't even a viable option anymore. Below I have compiled a list of the reasons why I believe that now is not the time for another bull-market, when in comes to crypto and investing overall.

ACCESS TO CREDIT

Everyone remembers in 2017 when Visa and Master card was trying to block all the fomo'ing "dumb-money" from buying bitcoin at 15k, 17k, and 20k on credit. Many of these people got REKT and probably filed for bankruptcy as a result when they lost all of their money on alt coins. I am sure that this time around the banks will have more controls in place preventing people from buying crypto with unsecured credit.

UNEMPLOYMENT AND EXPENDABLE INCOME

In 2017 the unemployment rate in the USA was 4.1 percent. In 2020, depending on where you get your information from, the current unemployment rate is between 13- 40 percent. As for the individuals who are employed, many of them are working reduced hours or for less money, in turn leaving them with little to no money for saving or investment purposes.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Many crypto investors have learned from the fall-out of 2017-2018 boom and bust crypto cycle. I for one didn't understand many of the ebb's and flow's of market, in turn getting destroyed over and over again. I'm pretty sure there were individuals like me in the 2015 boom and bust crypto cycle that learned the same lessons - many of them never coming back to the space. Nevertheless, every time we have one of these cycles, there becomes less and less sheep and more and more wolfs.

INCREASING DESIRE FOR HARD ASSETS

With the recent uptick in the precious metals markets which has even peeked the interest of people like Warren Buffet, who for the most part have been dead set against buying gold for all of his life, this illustrates the point that people wan't tangible assets. Sadly, crypto currency in general does not fit the description of a tangible asset, because it is no more than a line of code on a computer screen. Whether this paradigm shift is for or against crypto, that has yet to be decided.