the price has to start appreciating really soon, otherwise the massive number of holders will start losing patience, just to mention that in the worst case scenario 95% of all Bitcoins are just hoarded and you can confirm this by just looking to the daily volume across all exchanges and the daily transaction volume excluding the popular addresses, most of the new users joined because of the quick get rich scheme, posts on this forum and reddit that attack any different opinion or any voice of reason and just talk about how rich you will be if you hold 10 BTC and how this will be after few months is just worrying... well I can imagine if this wont happen this soon how this people will react...
the merchant adoption overpass the userbase adoption, each day we hear about new stores/companies adding Bitcoin which can be a good sign but only if the userbase is growing at the same or a bigger rate, my wife is doing her diploma about how Bitcoin as payment method would change economy here in Slovenia, in Q&A to a merchant
who accepts Bitcoin for more than a year he said that the only time clients pay with Bitcoin is around an ATH otherwise no one ask about paying with bitcoin, most of the bitcoiners use the coin as an investment or as a saving method believing that it would appreciate in value over time..... just a look to the thin orderbook of all exchanged combined would reflect the hoarding theory.
Bitcoin would be a good saving mechanism only if the adoption rate will be equal or more than the actual inflation rate (creation rate of coins) which is more than 10.5% a year. so choosing Bitcoin as saving method is as risky or maybe riskier than having fiat in your saving account.
