The number of trading activities would certainly affect the price of the bitcoin, they take the advantages of the rise and fall of the prices, but I'm sure it will not be able to prevent rising prices in the long term.
It will not. Because the lower it gets it also becomes rare and that makes it more valuable that can be seen thru pricing it with a large amount of fiat. As time goes by, many will see the truth about it being more expensive than any other currency. Sure, they might think of it like a commodity first but as they grow knowledge within the bitcoin community it will come to sense that it is really a currency.