Bitcoin was originally created for online peer-to-peer transactions. It is a payment method. It cuts out the middleman and lets you do the transaction in a decentralized fashion. Bitcoin is also an asset. It is also someone's retirement plan. To some, it is the next world currency. Bitcoin is not only just an asset, it has the potential to become many things.
It could differ from time to time. If the traffic is high or you could say the mempool is full, it will take a higher fee for fast transactions. If you want speed, you need to spend more. If you want less fee, then it will be slower.
Past performance does not indicate future progression. It seems like the past is influencing the market and the market is running in the same manner, but in reality, it's all about our sentiments towards the market. We try to match the past to the present in order to predict the future. It's all in our hands, Bitcoin being decentralized proves that.