Heres what I mean.
Has the bitcoin network gotten stronger over the past year? I would say yes there is high hashpower than last year, theres been a lot of bug fixes,
Are more people using bitcoin than last year?
There have been a number of big moves for bitcoin this year, Lightning network and the world overall is more aware of bitcoin. Are there any more big bitcoin news events that happened this year.
Negative news is the price but its not all about the price sometimes.
I'm not sure if the bitcoin market could be said to have grown this year, but I don't think that there have been any steps back (except the price) which will only be a benefit in the long run, there have been steps made by institutions to enter the market for crypto and I think we'll see more of them come in to fruition in 2019.