Yes, there was a lot of FUD leading up to November 2012. Pretty much like now %-wise, and probably like spring of 2020 will be. Now that we are into the next 12.5 BTC era, we'll see what happens.
The advantage now is that we're nearing the end of the asic order of magnitude increases like there have been for nearly 4 years and will be back to growth in line with user growth and regular silicon improvements in the next year or so which should help to let more people mine and decrease consolidation.
I hope so.
Yeah btc sudden rise is cool like hell.
But the main problem is that instability is NOT a good thing for a currency.
BTC assets are cool but the high volatility isn't attractive...
Volatility is the main thing traders are looking for. So in fact, volatility is attractive. Without this much volatility I am quite sure that people wouldn't be as interested in investing their money into Bitcoin as they have been so far. It allows the market to have a healthy influx of incomming fresh money.