Hi turr, I share your optimism in general but would like to disagree on your statement that the 98% retail shareholders have tight hands.

This unfortunately isn't the case and too many had/wanted to sell for various reasons. That's the reason that the SP has declined so much and that the SP supply is still quite high.

If more people would need to buy from the ask, it would drive the price. This would be a good thing. But I think because POET has so many retail holders (and also traders) the SP performs the way it does. It doesn't perform the way it would when people would have diamond hands and hold their shares.

If we would have more institutional shareholders, I would assume the SP would be acting differently and be more stable, as they are not trading as much and would hold more longterm. I think one example is LWLG to an extent, they have way more instis and when the SP rises, it looks like that there are less shares thrown into the bid, which allows a better SP increase. 
In POET the supply of cheap shares is surprisingly still quite high. I assume due to people's needs especially due to current economical circumstances. When this ends, we are up to the races. But it may take a while, as some current shareholders would still be happy to cash in after a few percentage gains.

This is the reason why I only invest money that I don't need, since I don't want to sell due to needs. So, I never needed to sell cheaply. However, unfortunately I also never sold expensive and used some of the trading opportunities.