The best chance for cryptocurrency price recovery is if they've actually used as currencies

Basically, everyone who wanted to get Bitcoin (and / or other cryptocurrencies) has already bought it. The cat's out of the bag, everyone and their hairdresser have discussed Bitcoin and in the current dip, everyone who had any intention of buying, has bought it. The hype is currently conspicuously absent from the global mindset. 

How do we get out of such a swamp and stagnation of value? I think the most likely way out is to actually treat cryptocurrencies as actual currencies, to treat utility tokens as actually having a utility, instead of just pretending "ha ha, wink wink, sure it's a utility token, just you wait until it gets into an exchange". The lustre on cryptocurrencies is practically gone, and a feeling of disillusionment is hovering around over the concept of crowdfunding via ICOs in general. It doesn't help that now, mid-2018 it's practically impossible to get any kind of serious ICO funding from actual small investors, and everyone who actually wants to fund actual development is forced to rely on big investors which are aggressively maximising short-term profits.

Until the "HODL" mindset gives way to a healthy economics, meaning crypto actually starts flowing as a method of payment for goods and services, I don't see any serious price recovery at all.

To accomplish that, these are the kinds of things which need to happen:

• More shops accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
• Easier, more automated exchanges -- the concept of Distributed Exchanges (DEX) should have helped but... it's like something's missing, probably the barrier to entry & ease of use are still insufficient
• Tokens really behaving as utility tokens, useful for their particular projects. This is the route I want to take with the idea of Equinox.
• Either a better defined legal framework which businesses can get behind when dealing with crypto, or a global admission that the cat's out of the bag and just a free-for-all (frankly, I don't know which is the worse outcome).

As it currently stands, everyone's waiting for the next big thing, which would pull crypto out of the "solution waiting for a problem" drawer and into an actual economy.