Right, I also think so, this year will be a golden year for Cryptocurrency, based on the history of bitcoin in the past years :
08 Jan 2016 $     457 (Bitcoin halving happened this year)
08 Jan 2017 $     908
08 Jan 2018 $ 16,476
08 Jan 2019 $   4,028
08 Jan 2020 $   8,161 (Bitcoin halving happened this year)
08 Jan 2021 $ 41,500
08 Jan 2022 $ ..........?

I had to refresh my page multiple times to see whether you said about a valuation of $24345 as i am having a few drinks as the market moved away from those valuation a few days back and now the price of BTCitcoin is around $40,110  . I would say that institutional investors have identified the cryptocurrency market as an opportunity to make quick profit and hence they are investing billions and you need to understand that once they start booking the profit the price would dump like we have never seen before.

was it actually above $42k, did not saw it, saw that reached some $41,8k, but not above that, and as I can see coingecko.com ATH is below $42k, you should check this before publishing as well, and edit your post, as OP has to do as well
it is important to share data that are actual and true, I agree

at the moment, it is somewhere between $40k and $41k (it is a 2,5% range, so easily could gone above $41k)

Regardless of the price you posted, (which is obviously wrong), bitcoin's price is going up in record numbers. Institutional investors are the one that is fuelling this bull run and we really don't know when it's going to stop. Of course it already surpassed 2017 high's as we have entered an unchartered territories, and there's more room in this year to even hit 6 figure numbers.

As long as retail, institutions and those companies are investing, 2021 will be the biggest I reckon, even topping 2020. Of course there will be corrections, but if you are going to hold your bitcoin a full year then most likely it will give you a good profits.

I'm normally completely pessimistic when it comes to the short term value of Bitcoin, and I made the prediction that it would drop for a few months a couple of weeks ago. Its lovely to be proven wrong though.

I wouldn't recommend investing based on this assumption though. Just because you've identified something has a pattern, doesn't actually mean there's a pattern. Investment should always consider your financial situation, and the current climate of the world. I feel like with the recent pandemic people might become a little too desperate, and invest more than they can afford to lose, at least expecting short term profit. (There's me being a little pessimistic again)
 
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, but if you plan on selling at a certain price point, and holding until then keep your coins off the exchange. Its never good practice to store high amounts on an exchange wallet for longer than is required. Personally, I only recommend storing the coins on an exchange wallet moments before selling, and only moments after buying.

To be honest, I'm quite impressed by how high the price currently is. My predicted ATH for 2021 was 80-120k - now I wonder whether I was underestimating the markets, I mean.. we're half-way there already and it's only the second week of January!

The fact that the "what if this time it's different" idea can actually turn into reality is quite scary and exciting at the same time tho.

I thought I mislook what OP posted in price anyway maybe it's a typo or he also mislook the price while typing, the price of BTC at $42k is impressive provided it's already just a start of the year, many thinks that like in 2017 ATH once the new year reached it will start to decline in it's price buy it's not what is happening, BTC still increasing and I regretted that I early out some of my BTC.

Hopefully this can be achieved, I think the initial target for 2021 is to be able to reach $ 50k first, because in the history of transactions in previous years the movement of bitcoin could only reach 100% and there will be a long correction afterwards, hopefully in in 2021 bitcoin could reach a new era and continue to increase over time.

This could be a new ATH and it will always remember by crypto enthusiasts and yes, they will never forget this moment and this will always a part of 2021 that bitcoin has reached the ATH in the record. I guess they will forget the year 2017 bull run, they will keep talking about this year which we experience bull run and doubled the previous ATH.

I'm happy enough to see that the market experienced a massive high, it's proved to the new investors that bitcoin investment has the potential to gain profit if you are holding this.