The crypto world at the moment is one filled with so many levels of emotion and reactions to varying degrees of loses experienced by people. While some people are sobbing about their little loses, we should also reflect on the fact there are people who bought BTC @ $20K, Ripple @ $3, ADA @ $1.22, etc. Most of these guys are still hodling, hoping the market will bounce back and they'll recoup their loses.
You understand that manipulators brought the price to such a level. Investors did not invest in ATH, because if it happened, it would not be ATH and the price would fly much higher. It's simple, because it's mathematics.
Yes, these are the things will be decided by time. Let's take bitcoin prices for example here to understand better on how things are working around here. Those who have bought at $1000 by 2013 and still holding must be happy right now but definitely not in 2015 or in 2016. $1200 was the ATH then in 2013 but many people rushed to buy at that times just due to FOMO but only very few people decided to hold till 2017 to find the real potential of bitcoin and the time proved that all of them right.
Hence, there will be no need to show pity on those who bought at ATH in late 2017. Things will change in near future like bitcoin prices will have new ATH for sure. Here, we must need to note something keenly. Only those who are holding, got chances to find profits. Also, only very few assets performed well to have new ATH and most other coins got dumped and hit values less than one satoshi.
Moreover, I pity on those who are not having plans for long term holding and have invested into random assets which are not having long term prospectuses.