As simple as this question appears to be, it looks like people change their outlook on the market at different moments in time.
To the question "Are we in a bull market?" some will say yes and would have said yes for quite some time. Others would have changed their the outlook recently, after bitcoin broke the 30-31k area and is well into the 30-40 range, even above 35k.
To me it's surprising that, even now, enough people are waiting for the bull market in crypto. Waiting for what? For new all-time highs? For streaks of 10%+ days or 50%-100%+ weeks? That's not bull market, that's hype. It's the final phase of a bull run. Depending how quickly hype comes, we can have more than one hype period in a bull market. But let's make it clear: hype is only a component of the bull market, characterized by quasi-generalized pumping of prices, usually followed by dumping to a support level when there is no more steam in the pump or when big players decide to do it.
The gains with lower risk are made when there is no or little hype. Like... now. When the market slowly goes up, solidifying support levels on the way up, not when there is liftoff with no time to create any support levels.
However, the highest gains are made during the hype. The highest losses too, in my opinion, because there are increasing risks:
- to be affected by FOMO and not thinking straight
- associated with the high volatility
- associated with not being able to take the right decisions quickly enough
- associated with not being able to make deposits/withdrawals/transactions on CeXes at peak volume times or when they decide to
- associated with scams, rugpulls, hacks, etc.
- associated with high slippage and/or impermanent loss for AMMs
However, you have to take decisions yourself, based on your own logic and research, not on what I write here.
In theory, a bull market is a phase in financial or commodities markets characterized by almost generalized price increases over medium term (months to years). Bull runs can be interrupted by pullbacks, but the general trend is up.
It says nothing about new ATHs or about hype.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the next two charts for bitcoin:
In the second chart it's harder to argue that we've been in a bull market since the beginning of 2023 because it took forever and multiple attempts to break the 30-31k resistance, but now that the resistance has been broken, I have almost no uncertainty about the future medium term trend in crypto: up.