Highly doubt bitcoin can go up more than 1000. There is no easy money in the world.
If the status quo persists then I agree with you. Only 500K-2M users and I haven't seen any indication of any large userbase expansion. The internet back in 1989 had more users than Bitcoin currently does.
Userbase is only one relevant measure. Take a look at Pantera's BitIndex, which incorporates a variety of measures, user base being only one of them. Things are moving forward nicely according to the BitIndex.
Quote from: https://panteracapital.com/bitindex/
Pantera has developed the Pantera BitIndex ... to assist us in forming our views on what may happen to Bitcoin in the medium term.
The BitIndex currently incorporates seven data series, weighted according to our opinion of how the data affects Bitcoin’s long-term success:
1. Developer interest on GitHub is the most important metric, as it anticipates applications which will make Bitcoin more useful.
2. Merchant adoption is a proxy for the ease of spending, which is important for consumer adoption.
3. Wikipedia views are a measure of how often and how extensively people are becoming educated about Bitcoin. It is very erratic, spiking when Bitcoin is in the news.
4. Hashrate is a proxy for security, a primary determinant of a digital currency’s success. Without significant hashing power, a blockchain can be easily attacked or manipulated (witness how many altcoins have succumbed to a 51% attack). A log scale is used because this series has gone up 8,489x since the beginning of 2012.
5. Google searches measure Bitcoin’s media presence, captured by the number of times “Bitcoin” appears in the news or is queried by interested parties.
6. User adoption as measured by wallets determines the extent and speed of the network effect. Because wallet growth has been so rapid (115x since the beginning of 2012), a larger weighing would overwhelm other metrics while using a log scale would have required an absurdly high weighting.
7. Transaction volume is a proxy for Bitcoin network uses. It is underweighted because of the arbitrary nature of some bitcoin flows.
The BitIndex currently incorporates seven data series, weighted according to our opinion of how the data affects Bitcoin’s long-term success:
1. Developer interest on GitHub is the most important metric, as it anticipates applications which will make Bitcoin more useful.
2. Merchant adoption is a proxy for the ease of spending, which is important for consumer adoption.
3. Wikipedia views are a measure of how often and how extensively people are becoming educated about Bitcoin. It is very erratic, spiking when Bitcoin is in the news.
4. Hashrate is a proxy for security, a primary determinant of a digital currency’s success. Without significant hashing power, a blockchain can be easily attacked or manipulated (witness how many altcoins have succumbed to a 51% attack). A log scale is used because this series has gone up 8,489x since the beginning of 2012.
5. Google searches measure Bitcoin’s media presence, captured by the number of times “Bitcoin” appears in the news or is queried by interested parties.
6. User adoption as measured by wallets determines the extent and speed of the network effect. Because wallet growth has been so rapid (115x since the beginning of 2012), a larger weighing would overwhelm other metrics while using a log scale would have required an absurdly high weighting.
7. Transaction volume is a proxy for Bitcoin network uses. It is underweighted because of the arbitrary nature of some bitcoin flows.
While the size of the userbase may not be the only factor, I think it is an important one. We've had a lot of merchant adoption in the last year, the hashrate has exploded because of ASICS, developers are flocking to crypto in hope of attaining a slice of the pie, BTC has been featured in the media time and again, VC money has been investing in services, etc.
While tawnsew might be correct that most btc users don't have an account here, I am certain that the growth in users has been slowing down since the beginning of the summer, if not earlier. There is simply not enough demand for btc to meet supply and what is happening right now is that the userbase is lagging behind those other factors that you listed.
What btc needs right now is growth from everyday people. It would be better for a million new people to buy 1 btc each than to have some slimy wall street crook buy a million btc.
small 2x 3 x of gains will be insignificant.