Bitcoin's exchange rate has advanced in regular four-year cycles going back to about 2010. The peaks are phase-shifted from the four-year halving period.
Each cycle is punctuated by a media hype deluge. Nonstop coverage of Bitcoin in the popular media. Face ripping rallies every other day. Tales of freshly-minted millionaires and fortunes buried in landfills. That hasn't happened yet.
Each cycle brings in more news coverage, more users, more holders, more speculators, more critics, and more haters. If this trend holds, Bitcoin will follow one of two paths: it will be replaced by something better at its primary function; or it will replace something else. Network effects favor the latter.
The current cycle just happens to coincide with the largest expansion money base the world has ever seen.