During the 2008 recession, economist looked at data from the Great Depression in the 1930's to help them understand what the path to recovery would look like. In cryptocurrency, the only past example of a major retracement was 2014 (and that took 3 years to recover!). However, of course, since more people know about crypto now and there are other great coins and development teams out there (not just Bitcoin), the recovery shouldn't take quite that long. This is a projection of what the 2018 recovery would look like if it does follow the pattern of 2014-2016. One major assumption I'm making is that the market will crash back down to its strongest support, below even the lowest ebb we saw in February. This is just a realistic assumption; I've never seen a head and shoulders that turned out well; crypto enthusiasts are telling themselves that this couldn't possibly be like the dot-com bubble because it's different, but it is much like it. A recovery won't happen overnight, and I would be highly suspicious of any massive recovery that happens in a very short period of time. A Fibonacci cup that tests resistances and grows organically is much more healthy and likely than a surge to 820 billion in April that basically just looks like a set of twin peaks. Since the massive correction happened 3 times as quickly, this projection does assume that the recovery period will happen 3 times as quickly (just under 1 year instead of 3).
I understand many people who expected quick sustainable growth will be very disappointed, especially because they're surrounded themselves with yes-men who even told them in January that the market was just bull-flagging and there was nothing to worry about. But this recovery may very well take the better part if not most of the year if the market truly falls down to its strongest support. The massive bull run that happened in October, November and December took the entire 9 months of accumulation to create. The next bullrun will need an accumulation phase as well. For mid to long term holders, I would wait till April or May to buy in at least.