There is no distinction in the market between alts and bitcoin in my opinion, there's not year of bitcoin or year of alts. But many alts have already suffered more than 64%. Even if it rises 3 times, it will return to its original state. From that condition we just can to hope and pray, this year for alts.
Altcoins in general are not going to grow 3 times in value people need to accept this fact, yes this means that the market is not recovering as fast as we would like but that is life and this is in fact good news if you are a long term trader since many people will get very nervous when they see the price does not recover and then they will sell and you can take advantage of this situation.
I am afraid this assessment is correct, the times of low cap coins that were surging seems over and instead real projects with real products are seeing double digit growth. What is unfortunate for the treasure hunter is good for the market imho...it was unnatural before.