If we see the history of last bullrun, every coin potentially be 10x even shitcoin, but now ICO or IEO is not trusted anymore because so many fail and scam project, so for next bullrun we can't trust ICO or IEO coins. So for the safe investment choose major altcoin which already trusted in market such us ethereum, litcoin, BNB, XLM etc
You are right. The pump came because of the adoption of several projects in the past. but now there aren't many projects that have succeeded in attracting new investors with big money. we need lots of good new projects to foster massive mass adoption.