the only thing that truly matters is bitcoin's utility and the adoption of it because of them. and they are things such as lightning network and other scaling proposals in the future like signature aggregation that will continue to make bitcoin better and more useful.
these are real things that truly affect the price.
Some people argue that mainstream and institutional investors are waiting for more regulatory clarity and regulated investment instruments before putting their money into the market. I'm skeptical about that, but there's definitely some logic to it. Traditional investors are a lot more risk averse than early Bitcoin adopters.
If true, it means that cryptocurrency-friendly regulations or the approval of something like Bakkt could fundamentally increase market demand. That would obviously affect the price.