what surprises me is how little the transaction volume has increased. Transactions are everything for bitcoin. Bitcoin will go to the moon if it is adopted as a payment mechanism, which means massive levels of transactions.
but the volume remains utterly miniscule. A few tens of thousands btc traded per day, and most of that can be accountedfor in terms of miners and speculators.
good news would be an increase in transactions to an economically material level
If you want to compare transaction volumes with the past you have to compare it in fiat values though, 10 BTC today is not the same as 10 BTC a year ago.