Even if such a bearish phase occurs, the long term holders don't have to worry much. Because the prices are going to recover eventually and in all probability a new ATH will be attained. The global adoption of Bitcoin is happening at a rate which was not even imagined before. A couple of years back, if I was telling someone that Bitcoin would become the legal tender of an independent UN member nation, then I would have got labelled as insane and mentally unsound. And yet it has happened. And who knows? We may be only a few years away from Bitcoin becoming a truly international currency, accepted across the globe.