For me, this year is a gap year of cryptocurrencies market. Forget about market pumping or bitcoin bulls...whatever you call them. If you look back in the past, it loo like 2014 when bitcoin price go down after 1st pump in 2013 and then go to moon. This year is same as 2014, will be a gap year when a lot of people coming to crypto market. Some of them will give up, take out of crypto market before it go to the moon.
I think your observation can be right. After a big and dizzying bull run in 2017, this year gonna be different as Bitcoin and even the rest of the cryptocurrency market took the needed rest. Slowly but surely things will be picking up as we are heading towards the end of the year. So hopefully we are expecting that 2019 will be a banner year for Bitcoin and the rest of the altcoins. Money from institutional investors can be coming in soon in avalanche and I think they are just looking for the right timing. I am just hoping that next year the growth we are expecting will not be as crazy as that of 2017 which was based mostly on blind speculations...this time things should be based on value as the primary force behind it all.