I'm more confident if bitcoin will rise by the end of this year.
And then what? It will go down just as hard. Historically, the month January has always been a time where the market went down, and I'm quite sure that it will happen again and again. For that reason I strongly hope that we see the price increase sharply somewhere in Q1 or Q2 of 2019 and not this year. The main challenge this year isn't reaching a new all time high, but breaking the $10,000 level. And even then we aren't safe yet, because breaking $10,000 doesn't mean we'll be able to sustain that level -- sustaining that level will prove to be the challenge of the year for everyone here....
Though this year everyone expected the spring boom, and it did not happen either. With barely a ten-year history, and perhaps only seven at best on proper open markets, there's really not much history to build on, or for long-term patterns to emerge (unless months-long periods are considered long term).
Like you, I'm more leaning towards a climb back up old heights only in 2019, if not much later. There's a lot of momentum to build even if the volume seems to be picking up. The longer Bitcoin stays below this $10k barrier, without revisiting lows at each cyclical decline, the better the chances of it holding onto gains once we reach 5 digit prices again. So this current climate pretty much suits me.