I am kinda worried about one factor - rate of Bitcoin adoption. It seems like adoption slowed down significantly during last year, and sometimes even reverted (Steam is no longer accepting BTC)
Merchants doing that are operating a hidden agenda, or they are ignorant. Steam's reason to no longer accept Bitcoin is because of the volatility and the higher fees. It's pure bullshit. When they started accepting Bitcoin the market was just as volatile, and the fees are not an issue because they will always come down again.
Metcalfe's law states that the value of a network increases as the number of users on said network increases. So the number of users we have, affect directly the price BTC
The number of users do affect the price, but it's not as significant as you may think. People in all cases are quite conservative of nature. No one will buy or sell massively if whales don't do the initial work. It perfectly shows in current market. If whales don't steer the market to whatever direction, it consolidates.
Adoption is somewhat stagnant - no major company is talking about accepting bitcoin as a payment method - because they know that people are not willing to spend their coins anyway.
Bitcoin's adoption isn't stagnant. Bitcoin's adoption isn't just based on its currency aspect, but more so towards its digital Gold aspect. Bitcoin's adoption as currency has never really been a thing. Bitcoin's adoption as digital Gold is exploding.
I am worried that "hodling' mentality of Bitcoin users, in the end, will be a very big problem and the reason for low BTC adoption.
It's not a problem. People care about one thing only, which is seeing Bitcoin's price go through the atmosphere, and that is exactly what is happening.
I think eventually, when the price becomes stable, and we have easy to use Lightning clients, the currency aspect will crawl back up. It takes time.
