Maybe its the lightning network slowly closing Dash's window of opportunity.

Once LN is more fully deployed, unless Dash has built up a strong base of users (actual users not speculative hodlers) before then, Dash's main selling point of scalability, fast transactions and low fees becomes largely irrelevant imho. It still could do well by being more user friendly and adding other extra Ethereum like features in a user-friendly way, but it will get harder to break through and that is going to be reflected in the price.