By the most logical thinking:
Title of the thread conveys enough to understand the post isn't thought so logically.
There's strong evidence that the late 2017 spike in Bitcoin value was due to manipulation via Tether.
Bitcoin started with less than $1? Did tether even exists back then? FLAWED logic right here.
IF that is so, then that entire episode actually means nothing, and...
What?
Bitcoin etc values will decay back to their historical levels prior to pump & dump.
I'm still trying to find some sense of logic in your post. If everyone still holds their coins, how would the value fall? Magically?
This will be slow because interim buyers won't want to take the losses.
Look at BC charts for the past 6 months. It's very easy to imagine the average value continuing to decay down to $400 in 12-18 months. And that's what makes sense - at least, more sense than anything else.
Last week it saw an upside down value of $600. Falling and Rising is part of the bitcoin economy.