Because market price situations were not in our side eventually many traders has been failed throughout 2018 and most of us cannot avoid loss because the price of major cryptocurrency were dropped and it's not easy to get profit from downtrend situations and if you consider these loss as your valuable experience maybe in the future your trading results will much better than the previous one
A good trader can make money in any market, doesn't matter if its a bear or bull. The volatility the crypto markets provide is a dream compared to most traders when its compared to the stock market. I find it very difficult for myself to take short positions though because I know the long term potential of crypto is very high.
If you trade the traditional way without leverage and future contracts it's much harder to make money in the bear market. You have to wait for a big dip and buy there just to sell at the bounce and wait for another dip. If you miscalculate and it keeps falling you exit fast and try to enter again lower. The volatility is good but the unpredictability is also much higher. You saw what tether FUD did to the prices for a while.