People didn't think Bitcoin was good store of value back in December 2018... There was barely any major institutional investors back then.
It was also battle between Bitcoin and Ethereum as Ethereum was still better for daily use as gas fees were a lot lower than now. Last year of so has been notoriously bad for Ethereum with all the new smart contract platforms that have a lot lower transaction fees.
Yes, the odds of bitcoin succeeding long term has gone up tremendously in the last several years which makes people feel more comfortable buying it now compared with then.
Regarding ETH... agreed, and yet its price continues to go higher and higher and higher...
ETH will go higher as long as exchanges use ERC20-based tokens...
I've already seen some exchanges move on to other smart contract platforms, but it takes time until all move... I'm not even confident that all will eventually move as it's extra cost that needs to be compensated somehow.