Bitcoin’s Surging 2021 Gains and Parallels to the Last Bull Run

Ever since the start of 2024, Bitcoin has been on an impressive run. As of today, it’s up over 150% from the beginning of the year. The past few weeks in particular have felt reminiscent of the wild 2021 bull market.
About a month ago, I began documenting one of my crypto investment portfolios in an unofficial YouTube series. At the time, that portfolio was worth around $132,000. Recently it surged to $180,000 before pulling back to $160,000 today. Needless to say, we’ve been able to make some solid profits this year. Members of my private group have also been crushing it with their crypto investments.
I know many of my YouTube subscribers have also built up impressive gains on their holdings. If you’re watching this, I want you to know it’s not too late — you are still very early and have ample opportunity to get your investments ready for what I believe will be another massive bull run.
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Why I’m Still Ultra Bullish On Bitcoin

I remain staunchly long-term bullish on Bitcoin for three main reasons:

1. We’re in a New 4-Year Cycle

Crypto moves in market cycles. Typically we get a bull run followed by a bear market. I believe the recent bear market ended a while ago and the current bull market started many months back.
The textbook definition of a bull market is when we officially bottom out after a bear market low. Looking at the charts, the crypto bear market began when Bitcoin hit its all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021. It crashed over 77% to around $15,000 by November 2022 — one of the worst crypto bear markets ever.
More than two years have now passed since the bear market started. I’m confident Bitcoin’s bottom was hit in November 2022. The chart shows Bitcoin’s ascending price trajectory since that orange line bottom. Although we’ve seen fluctuations, the overall trend remains upwards. For Bitcoin to retest this cycle’s low, it would need to plunge 65% from current $40,000 levels.
I admit further drawdowns are possible, but TA and chart lines can’t predict short-term price action with total accuracy. That’s why I focus on long-term, fundamentals-based investing using historical data.
And historically, bull markets occur much more frequently than bear markets for Bitcoin. This chart illustrates Bitcoin’s annual returns since inception. Huge runs of 500–2000% were common early on, before 46% and 40% retracements. Then we saw multiple consecutive years of 50–150% gains leading up to the mega 2021 bull run. The data shows a 60% higher probability of a bull versus bear market for Bitcoin.
Also, no Bitcoin bull market has ever lasted only a single year. They heat up exponentially over multi-year periods. Statistically, the odds favor being long Bitcoin here.

2. The Bitcoin Halving Is Coming

Past halving events have catalyzed tremendous Bitcoin price surges. During the first halving, Bitcoin jumped from $12 to $1,178 within a year — a 9,716% increase! From the second halving, it exploded from $657 to $19,800 in 18 months for a 2,913% gain.
The 2020 halving mid-pandemic took Bitcoin from $9,000 to $65,000 by end of 2021 — a 6x increase in under a year to its peak of $69,000.
While the sample size is still small, if the pattern continues, a 7x gain from current levels would take Bitcoin to around $138,600 for the upcoming fourth halving era.

3. A Bitcoin Spot ETF Is Likely In 2024

I believe a Bitcoin spot ETF will finally gain approval in 2024. This would unlock a floodgate of institutional demand.
It’s not just me — analysts like Bloomberg Intelligence’s James Seyffart expect an ETF approved between January 5–10, 2024. About a dozen firms have spot ETF proposals pending — Grayscale, BlackRock, Fidelity and more.
I’ve been skeptical in the past, but we’ve continued seeing crypto futures ETFs approved — VanEck, Bitwise, Valkyrie, ProShares and others just in the past year. To me, a spot ETF remains the holy grail that will bridge the gap between the traditional finance and crypto worlds.
Institutional and regulatory approval through these ETFs will bring more mainstream investor confidence. That maturity should dampen crypto’s price volatility too. I’ve seen predictions that ETFs could funnel anywhere from $14 billion to $155 billion into crypto, potentially adding up to $1 trillion to the crypto market cap.
So those are three core narratives that should continue fueling this crypto bull market. There are plenty more tailwinds, but I believe those three will be the main catalysts driving prices higher.

How I’m Investing in This Crypto Bull Market

Now let me share how one of my portfolios is positioned to profit:
This portfolio got hit hard this year as I locked in some profits. A year ago it was around $80,000. Despite Bitcoin’s lows, I kept holding and saw growth in Q1 and Q2 2022. It wasn’t until October that my portfolio picked up momentum.
This past week my portfolio hit $180,000 before retreating to $165,000 today with Bitcoin’s pullback. But thanks to my long-term setup, I’m more excited than ever for the future.
Right now I’m about 75% allocated to Bitcoin and Ethereum — around $120,000 worth. These two cryptos often trend together, as the 1-year and all-time charts show. I’m slightly more bullish on Ethereum’s upside potential due to its lower market cap.
I’m staking my Ethereum to earn yields and receive tax benefits from holding longer than 1 year. At 3.46% APR, I’m earning $1,700 passively and have almost gained 1 whole ETH from staking.
The rest of my tokens are in altcoins. As the bull market matures, I plan to trade Ethereum profits into higher-risk narratives. My strategy is to keep stacking Bitcoin and Ethereum through recurring buys, regardless of price. Then I’ll trade 10–30% of Ethereum into a basket of risky altcoins — but they’ll remain less than 10% of my net worth.
Despite my bullishness, crypto is still highly risky so I don’t risk more than that. This plan ensures maximum exposure to the tailwinds around the halving and ETF narratives.
Next, let’s look at some of the top altcoins I’m watching for this bull cycle.

My Top Altcoin Picks Riding Crypto Narratives

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Now back to the top altcoins I’m watching:

BRC2 Narrative

Longtime subscribers know my early involvement with NFTs before they went mainstream. Ethereum and ERC20 tokens powered the NFT explosion.
Now a narrative is emerging around BRC2 — Bitcoin’s version of ERC20 tokens. Introducing ordinal NFTs on Bitcoin has sparked interest in using its network for immutable data storage.
Rather than Ethereum, more projects could leverage Bitcoin’s dominance as the top crypto by market cap and popularity. I’m not sure if this narrative will pan out, but exposure can be gained through Ordinals (ORT) — the leading BRC2 wallet.

Play-To-Earn Gaming

By now you’ve surely heard of “play to earn” crypto gaming. Traditionally, video games have been pay-to-play — we pay for consoles, discs, in-game purchases.
Play-to-earn games let you earn crypto rewards for gameplay time. You can adjust the time-to-money ratio for fun and potential earnings.
As a lifelong gamer who grew up playing Call of Duty and League of Legends, I’ve always seen gaming as an entertaining but unprofitable time sink. Play-to-earn games promise to change that, and I believe they are the future of the $390 billion gaming industry.
Of course, developing great blockchain games takes time. But many have been in the works for years now, so we should see releases soon. I’m watching Gala Games, Illuvium, and The Sandbox — three major narrative plays from the last bull run. But it’s still risky until games launch and gain traction.

The AI Meta

AI’s potential in crypto is huge. We all know ChatGPT has taken the world by storm in 2023. I don’t see this trend slowing down at all.
“AI tokens” leverage artificial intelligence to improve blockchain user experiences, scalability, security, and more. It’s still an emerging niche, so we’ll have to see which specific projects gain adoption.
On CoinMarketCap you can browse AI and big data crypto categories, though labeling is subjective. Development of true AI cryptos is still early. As with any investment, do ample due diligence before jumping in.
Three bigger AI narrative plays are: Ankr, Graph, and Render.

Tokenized Real-World Assets

“RWAs” involve tokenizing real-world tangible assets like real estate, commodities, art, treasuries, etc. The global real estate market is worth $326 trillion and gold is $12 trillion.
RWAs aim to tokenize these into digital, blockchain-based ownership. Then the ledger tracking ownership is immutable and decentralized.
Right now there’s a disconnect between real-life asset ownership and digitization. As blockchain tech advances, we should see more blending between physical and digital across assets.
For example, cars and houses are owned through paper titles that can be lost. Blockchain could provide benefits here. If you agree, look into RWA plays like REO, AllianceBlock, or Creditcoin. It’s early days so more projects are sure to emerge.
So those are four narratives I’m watching that could fuel the next crypto bull run. Next let’s discuss how to pick the most promising crypto investments.

How To Pick The Best Crypto Investments

Here are 3 easy ways for beginners to start researching new crypto opportunities:

1. Follow Trending Narratives

We just covered the power of narratives in moving crypto markets. Head to Twitter and search narratives, follow accounts discussing them, read through threads, and you’ll find intriguing projects.
But always look them up on CoinMarketCap to analyze market cap, price charts, news, etc. Check their social engagement, see if they have backing from reputable sources. Don’t just ape in blindly.

2. Find Cryptos In “Accumulation”

Go to LunarCrush.com and click “Accumulation” on the left. This shows cryptos seeing significantly higher than usual trading volumes over extended periods — weeks or months.
Ride the momentum during these accumulation phases. But just because a crypto is accumulating for months doesn’t guarantee future price increases. Use it as one indicator for researching.

3. DeFi Coins With Rising Value Locked

“Value locked” refers to the total value deposited into DeFi protocols. I check DefiLlama.com to see which crypto platforms are accumulating the most value.
Obviously Ethereum dominates, but you may be surprised to see Tron, Solana, Arbitrum and others gaining steam. While this alone doesn’t signal upside potential, it can help uncover opportunities.
You can also find disparities — similar value locked figures but vastly different market caps — to uncover possible gems. Again, no guarantees, but more tools for researching.

Building A Balanced Crypto Portfolio

Here’s how I’d structure a portfolio using my “triple lever framework”:
It’s like a lever you can ratchet up for higher risk/reward. For the low-risk profile:

• 80% BTC + ETH (stability)
• 15% Medium-risk altcoins
• 5% High-risk (moonshots)

Bitcoin and Ethereum move somewhat in tandem, as we saw earlier. Ethereum could outperform Bitcoin but carries more risk.
Medium-risk alts would be top 10–20 coins that could still 5–10x like Solana, Cardano, Chainlink, etc.
High-risk consists of microcaps under $500 million market cap or even under $100 million. These have potential for massive gains but are very speculative.
The medium-risk portfolio is:

• 50% BTC + ETH
• 35% Medium-risk alts
• 15% High-risk altcoins

And high-risk is:

• 25% BTC + ETH
• 25% Medium-risk
• 50% High-risk alts

Which lever you choose depends on your:

• Risk tolerance — conservative or aggressive?
• Goals — 2x? 5x? 10x? In one bull run?
• Budget — how much to invest comfortably?
• Time/effort — active or passive investing?
• Exit strategy — when/how to take profits?

There’s no one-size-fits all portfolio. Dial in the exact allocation that matches your situation. A proper exit strategy is critical too, so let’s discuss how I intend to lock in over $1 million in profits this bull cycle.

My Strategy For Exiting Over $1 Million in Crypto Profits

1. I’m playing narratives that tend to be high-risk. I accept I’m not a day trader — I look for swing trades in favorable conditions. With Bitcoin nearing $40k, I’m accumulating narrative plays for the long-term.
2. I set targets and goals for how much profit I want to lock in. If we get a Bitcoin all-time high around $130k, I’ll start scaling out around $100k or the previous $69k all-time high to be conservative.
3. For Bitcoin and Ethereum, that’s my gameplan. But for altcoins, I usually enter and exit much quicker once hitting 2–3x or more. In the last bull run, I’d hit targets of $2–10k and sell. Bitcoin is my barometer for when to take altcoin profits.

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To conclude, here are the likely crypto market scenarios I see playing out:
There’s a 35% chance crypto cools off further into the $20ks. But I think a 60% probability favors continuing accumulation towards new highs over the coming years. The least likely is a total collapse where crypto fades to zero.
If I hit my profit goals around $400k, I’ll take stablecoin profits and wait for new research and opportunities in high-risk microcaps after any washout bottoms.
We covered a lot of ground here. But now you have a much deeper grasp of how to thrive in these crypto markets and are well-prepared for the epic bull run ahead.
What did you eat for lunch today? Let me know in the comments — it helps the YouTube algorithm when you engage! And don’t forget to like this video and check the description for special links. Thank you for watching — see you again soon!