I think education is key to adoption. The more people understand the benefits and how to use Bitcoin, the more likely they are to adopt it. We need to move beyond the 'cryptocurrency is scary and confusing' stereotype and make it accessible to everyone.
Yup this.
While certainly there are improvements needed in regulations for exchanges, regulatory clarity for legacy finance firms to get into Bitcoin, UI/UX of bitcoin wallets, plenty of improvements in Lightning Network, merchant adoption both for online and brick and mortar stores, tax laws allowing purchases with bitcoin without owing capital gains taxes...the main thing that is needed for global adoption is much greater education on Bitcoin.
If you ask someone who has money to invest and doesn't have Bitcoin why they don't have Bitcoin, the answer invariable is going to be related to lack of education on Bitcoin. They either don't know what it is or they are scared of it, or they heard it is going to zero or is some sort of pyramid scheme, or they think its bad for the environment, or they think it'll just be banned, or they think it doesn't have any utility, or they are scared of the volatility. All these are lack of education problems. Somewhat lack of financial education but mostly specifically lack of bitcoin education.
If the whole world magically got educated on Bitcoin tomorrow you'd have probably a billion people buying Bitcoin for the first time tomorrow, and many more after that.
The vast majority have either no information about Bitcoin or mostly/entirely misinformation. This leads them to be ignorant or negative towards Bitcoin. Unfortunately we can't magically educate everyone tomorrow. It'll take many years to educate the general public.
If we could even just educate the public on the difference between volatility and long term growth, the four year bitcoin cycle (so that they aren't always buying at the top when they get in), what hard money is and why Bitcoin is the best hard money humanity has ever had, why PoW mining is so positive for humanity and the environment, why Bitcoin is unique compared to every other crypto, and how bitcoin lets people bank themselves and send money to anyone in the world, and the basics of making an address and using a wallet to send transactions, that alone would get most people with spare money interested in owning Bitcoin. And you could probably teach someone the basics of all that in one day, at least enough for them to have a surface-level comprehension of why Bitcoin is so good.
But of course in reality they have to seek out the information for themselves, find good sources and be interested enough to learn, and get passed the flood of misinformation which dominates the information landscape around Bitcoin. So the reality is that it is not an easy task and will take many years, maybe a generation, to get the general public informed on Bitcoin.