Direct transactions are on-going. It might not be much but it is pretty much still going on. The good thing about it is that some people are freelancers earning a lot from doing crypto related jobs and basically more like their major income.

With this, we can keep getting more people in the system that are still spending and saving some, but this does not really mean we will never have people who would still prefer to save and hold which even makes the demand more than the supply and hence why we have increased in value so quickly.