If I look back to ~2017 or so and what I thought could happen with Bitcoin back then, the price is not what most surprised me (in fact, in 2017 we almost saw 20k - not that far away from the current price).

Instead, it's mainly two things:

First, that its first layer still is the most used. In 2017 I thought on-chain transactions would collapse in 2-3 years and everybody and their grandma would flee either to Layer-2s like Lightning or directly to altcoins. This is of course not necessarily good news: people still hold many coins on exchanges, and retail adoption could be better. Institutional adoption is not something I'm surprised about, it was logical given the popularity Bitcoin had already reached in 2017, but the attention ETFs and similar products, and of course Saylor, are getting in the community, is something I wouldn't have predicted.

Second, that no altcoin came even close to Bitcoin's popularity. In 2017 Ethereum reached half of Bitcoin's market cap in one occasion, and BCH was also close to that mark for a short period. That looks like a very distant past now, with Bitcoin constantly over 50% dominance. And I was among those dumb folks who thought that some altcoins were "better than Bitcoin" back then. How wrong I was

Big investor's attracting while still general people not using it most.
Why did I not buy back then?


This is just a load of crap, a PC sitting around and generating money.

I'm surprised to see how far the government has gone to try to limit or control Bitcoin's dominance in the mainstream world. Since they've realized they can't "kill" or "destroy" Bitcoin, they've decided to infiltrate the system by trying to accumulate as much of the circulating supply as possible. Governments are doing this both directly and indirectly (through institutional investment firms, banks, etc).

The core Bitcoin Blockchain might remain decentralized in the long run, but it won't be of any use if centralized forces dictate who buys or sells Bitcoin. They will be the ones holding all of the cards with the supply they hold. Most people don't care about this, so they will continue to carry on with their lives as usual. Here's hoping for the best.