Large groups of well paid, organized, funded professionals with clear objectives and good management - (like R3, hyperledger, ethereum, others) are sure making those Core programmers look like the silly little whiny bitches that they are. Core is going NOWHERE and getting there pretty damn fast. Meanwhile, very sophisticated advance is being done every day in other part of crypto/blockchain.
This is 100% the end of bitcoin as we know it. Good thing too. This 'open source', 'no leadership', 'no organization' thing was always a load of bullshit.
If there is even the slightest theoretical possibility to manage decentralized crypto currency, this possibility will be used. Therefore, it makes no sense even to be surprised at this. However, those who manipulate the price of bitcoin, they will not have the goal of destroying bitcoin. They will try to make good money on it, that is, they will use its high volatility so that as many more mentally unbalanced persons sell their bitcoins and other crypto currency at very low prices. It's just necessary not to succumb to these provocations and everything will be fine. So bitcoin is not going to die.