Honestly I always expected that what needs to happen is figuring out something much better than crypto itself. I am not talking about defi, I am not talking about altcoins, I am not talking about a brand new blockchain or a new way to use blockchain, I am talking about something brand new that is much better and has no connection to bitcoin at all.
Remember just 10-12 years ago there was no bitcoin at all, it didn't exist and one day satoshi did it (whoever he is) and in the end we have it now and there are thousands of copies of it that tries to be a better and bigger version that failed. If you want bitcoin to be not going higher, you could have something totally better and at that point we would all switch to that and leave bitcoin that could stop the increase.
i can see what you mean but it won't happen overnight. what you are talking about is a revolution in the blockchain technology and something like that would take a very long time to come to reality. and unfortunately so far we have not seen that many attempts in that direction. there were some good ideas in first couple of years but nowadays everything is copy pasting to maximize profitability.
keep in mind that bitcoin didn't happen overnight and Satoshi didn't really release bitcoin in one day. he was working on it for 3 years before he released it in 2009, and before that the idea was around for more than a decade (eg. hashcash which is a proof of work system was proposed in 1997).
for people to abandon bitcoin and move entirely to a new cryptocurrency that new one has to be significantly better while finding fantastic solutions to some issues that bitcoin struggles with, hence the need for a massive revolution in technology.
besides, bitcoin can also advance and change. it is not like the design is absolutely unchangeable. it is not
significantly changed so far because there is nothing better to change to. which means even if a much better solution were found, bitcoin may be the one finding it and using it first!