I don't think NXT is dying. They have a good, enthusiatic team. And I think they are well funded. They are a major sponsor in the upcoming Payment Expo.
A decent development team is about all they have going for them.
Waning user adoption and interest, lack of merchant acceptance, lack of VC investment and legitimate business interest.
Part of NxTs problem deals with not having first mover advantage and another part of it is its tainted and questionable ICO. Bitcoin has enough problems with Satoshi being anonymous and possibly controlling between 2- 5% of all Bitcoins that will ever be mined but at least it was a fair POW distribution where anyone can mine. It is very likely (based upon the evidence) that between 5-9 users control most of the stake with NxT which is very troubling and why most people are apprehensive about getting involved with NxT.
This will continue haunt them just like Paycoin, Dash, Maidsafecoin and many other coins that didn't have a fair launch.
Thanks for giving a fair and informative post. So I guess it's in the hands of the NXT whales then if they want NXT to succeed. Imo, they better make use of their stash than hoarding them.