No it isnt. if bitcoin had been losing its popularity, do you think it would be on the news half as often as it is currently? Its just that during the downtrend, people are just dumping in panic, thats whats causing increasing depreciation of price. Also, the surge in altcoins in the past year and half, and most of them being scams, has lead to the general opinion among the 'non-bitcoin' public that bitcoin is itself a scam/ponzi, and one should never go into using it. This has just prevented some people from joining in, but never reduced the already strong belief that is existing in the community, that is mostly BitcoinTalk.org