Check out BAT (Basic Attention Token) - Pretty soon their Ad System will drop and people will get paid for watching Ads, prob has a good chance of taking off. Plus they just hit 10mil downloads.
Prices could easily increase if you think about the amount of traders actually betting against it right now; it could lead to a massive short squeeze that forces traders to buy and cover positions.
I am not saying I expect new highs to hit this year, but I am saying that it is still certainly possible. Catalyst like a bitcoin ETF being approved is likely all it would take to launch bitcoin to new highs by the end of this year.
There might be price manipulation in cryptosphere but that will be done to disrupt its balance. But those artificial price manipulation wont succeed over time. Therefore, it still possible to ethereum and alts to hit a new all time high.
I believe one of the main reasons Bitcoin crashed is because of a lot of interference of noobs who took it as a money doubling tripling scheme. Bitcoin isn't really made for that. Will it rise back?? Well I believe yes if not sooner then a bit late but it will coz blockchain is future.