It's hard to come out with true results since we are in the adoption period expect the unexpected to happen, every year is a different scenario because of many new players and companies are coming in, some sectors want to create FUDS some hype because there is no one group that control the market but we do have whales and sometimes their action contradict each others.
You are accurate about us never being able to predict the exact time when altcoin will come out of bear market.
There are many people in the market with different goals and opinion, some whales believe that this is the accumulation period and they start accumulating, while some believe this is the selling period, and they start selling depending on the time that they all entered the market, so their action will surely contradict themselves, but amidst all these contradicting actions, we just need to take advantage of the bear market also to invest in coins that are qualified for long term investment, so that anytime they eventually come out of the bear market, they will be able to generate a reward that will pay for the time we have spent supporting the project.