Bitcoin is in a cycle which most investors dismiss and will always recover beyond its previous peak.
Bitcoin historical crashes: 2011: Bitcoin fell 94%
2013: Bitcoin fell 87%
2014: Bitcoin fell 83%
2018: Bitcoin fell 70%
As you can see more MarketCap - less fell!
What do you think about it?Bitcoin is still in a long term uptrend, becasue adoption currently hasn't reached its maximum yet. Also when you factor in the fact that fiat currency is always depreciating, it essentially means that bitcoin is almost guaranteed to be in a long term growth curve.
But people forget that BTC, like any other investment, has bull and bear markets. Last year, we had an ultra bullish year, while this year things have cooled off a bit.
As you said, though, when the trough hits, eventually the price will recover above its previous all time high as we saw time and time again when the bull market swings by. And this imho will occur as long as we're still in the early adopter phase, where less than 10% of the world has any BTC.