The general sentiment is that the marketcap of crypto as a whole will improve this year, but obviously this is by no means guaranteed.
As for whether all coins will increase - the answer is a clear 'no'. There will always be winners and losers in any market, and crypto is the same. Some projects are good, and their coins will do well. Some are weak, and will fail. The trick is in identifying the good ones.

It was a short uptrend, likely because of positive news from SEC on likelihood of an eventual approval for BTC ETF. We need much bigger price rises than this though before we can suggest the bear market is ending. At the moment we are just seeing sporadic upwards movement that is obliterated by a bigger drop. It's a bumpy road down, full of lower highs and lower lows. We need something to stop this downwards momentum.

A day or even a week of upwards movement is nothing really against the larger pattern. Remember BTC has dropped from $20,000 to $3,600. A rise of even 40% would only take BTC back up to $5,000... which would I think still not be enough to say for sure that the bear has ended. I think we'd need to double current prices before we could consider it an indication that it might be ending.

Prices are quite low at the moment, but the question of whether they will fall further is still wide open, with no indication yet. Volumes are increasing, which is goood, but prices are still following the year-long trendline downwards.
I would say BTC is the one to watch, as this often leads any recovery. If BTC starts to rise dramatically, that might be a good time to buy.

I think Bitcoin will be the major driver of any recovery. We need to watch BTC price movements closely, particularly historic support levels and any psychologically important thresholds. $5k is the next big one going up.

I can see a recovery happening this year. We do need to see what happens in the next few weeks - if we get a few more bumps upwards to push us above the previous support line of around $200 billion whole market cap, then I think we can interpret this as a sign that the bear is coming to an end.

I think both Ripple the company and XRP the coin will survive and prosper. The question of whether banks will use the XRP coin or a coin of their own devising has been answered many many times. A lot of the objection to Ripple and XRP I think comes from an ideological standpoint rather than from a dispassionate assessment of the solution and the tech.

In general the advice if you're new is to start with Bitcoin to learn the ropes, and then move into alts later once you are more familiar with crypto. I would say this is also a good strategy as we hopefully near the end of a bear market  bitcoin is often the one that leads any recovery.

I would say there is a need to take risks because the opposite, the safe path, just means perpetuation of the status quo. Do you go for a new job or stick with your currrent one? Do you buy a new house or stick to your current one? Do you invest in crypto or in more established companies on the stock exchanges?
Whenever we take a risk we are doing so because it may end up better than the current situation, or it may end up worse, but we have reached a (hopefully reasoned) decision that the potential reward outweighs the potential risk. Ultimately it is a judgement call, and whilst we can't know the future, we can at least  keep ourselves as informed as possible, and learn from out previous mistakes, in order to lead us to better decisions.

I would say Bittrex. It has always been reliable for me, and has a huge variety of coins, so it is a good place to stock up on more obscure coins that are otherwise only available on the smaller and less reputable exchanges.

Look at the price charts over a 12 month range. Then it's immediately apparent that movements like the latest upwards one are very small compared to the overall trend, and sit easily within it. We need an upwards movement that is either much longer in duration or much sharper in increase. Only then can we suggest that the bear might be ending.

I think it's irrelevant which coin is number 2 in cap. ETH and XRP are both very solid coins and can expect to be the top two alts for some time to come.
The important thing for me is if one of them ever overtakes BTC as number one in cap. For a lot of people, BTC=crypto... and if this changes it will mark a real milestone in crypto development.

I don't know anything about that project, but the idea of a self-developing network makes me a bit concerned.
The good thing about hard forks is that they establish a consensus. everyone knows what the rules are beforehand, and everyone chooses whether or not to sign up to the new (forked) rules, or to continue on the old chain with the old rules. The idea of a self-developing network sounds a bit chaotic, as if you can never be sure what the rules are, and never be safe against someone changing them arbitrarily.
As I say though, I'm not bad-mouthing that project, it's just an initial thought on the concept in general.

It's kind of a strange problem. If a coin fails to hit hard cap at ICO, then when it first hits the exchanges, you'd expect there to be very little volume - because those who wanted to buy would have bought at ICO. So really you have no buyers. Equally you have no sellers from the people who bought at ICO, because they are investing a project they believe in, they're not likely to sell before it even has a chance to get started. So the only sellers are bounty hunters, and people who bought in at ICO just because they got a decent % early bird bonus and want to cash in.
So in this situation you have a thin market with no buyers... which is why prices drop. In a thin market a price of $1 per coin doesn't mean that the whole supply could be sold for $1 each, it just means that's the best any buyer is offering for some coins.

When I stop waffling, what I'm basically saying is that prices in a thin market aren't really indicative of the true value of  the project.  there's no need to panic sell because you see price dropping when it's only a few orders.

Tokens get delisted all the time, generally when their volume falls to a very low level. Even if a coin fell to $0, and it became worthless, it would still exist and still be in your wallet, if you have a private wallet. If you have a coin held on an exchange and gets delisted, that's different - but the good exchanges will warn you in advance of tokens getting delisted.

I always look at the charts for longer periods of time. The bear trend has continued for a year, with minor ups and bigger downs throughout. This is just the latest minor upturn in a generally downwards pattern. I think we'd need price rises of around 100% to break us out of the bear. At the moment, the upwards movement is very small in dollar terms.

I think the bear market will end this year and we'll see a new bull run. I think that BTC is the coin to watch, as alts often follow BTCs lead.
As to whether people will recover their losses, I suppose it depends on when they bought in. I can see a sizeable recovery this year, but probably not to December 2017 levels. But who knows? Crypto is unpredictable and can make any prediction look foolish.

Constantinople postponement is for me a good thing. It indicates that testing is thorough and responsible enough to identify these potential issues. I'd much rather we have a delayed upgrade than a faulty one.

I'd disagree with this. The SEC thing was more of an acknowledgement that an ETF would be approved at some point in the future. It probably did have an effect on price, but this is not a new bull run. We need a lot more than prices turning green - we have dropped from over $800 b market cap to just over $ 100 b. A rise to $120 doesn't signal a bull, we'd need much much more to break out of this. I'd say back above the support level that held last year might be enough, so we'd then be needing a cap of about $250 b.
I do think we'll have a bull run this year, but I think it's premature to say it has started now.

I think BTC is the one to watch. Technical analysis doesn't always apply in crypto, and I think we need to watch BTC price because alts tend to follow in its wake.
A BTC recovery to around $6000 would I think suggest that we are nearing the end of the bear market.
A BTC drop to $3000 would hit a key psychological support level, and from there it's either a bounce upwards, or slow eroding of the support on the way to another big sell-off.