Bitcoin was never a currency, most of people use bitcoin as an alternate and anonymous payment method without higher transaction fees while others used bitcoin as an investment.A currency is backed by bank or solid collateral but with bitcoin there is nothing like this.
I am afraid you were right, take a look to how much unconfirmed transaction so far?
There is really a lot of transaction stucked, imagine how many business/merchant leaving day by day because of this problem
I am sure people nowadays feel insecure when have to use a currency that worth $1,000
Then they feel more comfortable use bitcoin as investment.
Bitcoin was developed to counter the digital insecure method,it is itself is extraordinary concept from how a mathematics can be turned into a digital payment core.
Now days bitcoin is used less for effective purpose but more for illegal transaction.yup it's anonymous nature have given people to invest/hide their money so it also became an asset.