I think the biggest change recently is that the civil war inside the bitcoin community has calmed down, a lot. There's still a deadlock, but at least people are

I think the biggest change recently is that the civil war inside the bitcoin community has calmed down, a lot. There's still a deadlock, but at least people aren't at eachothers throats 24/7. It's a reassuring change of pace. I think it's a combination of some people realizing that you can do a LOT with 3 tps (the global gold market is far less than that), and also of many people realizing that Bitcoin's incentive structures protect it even in the face of a miner with >50% hashrate. (Mining costs hundreds of millions in electricity, and hardware costs hundreds of millions as well. If the miners become malicious, either users will hardfork or leave, and those hundreds of millions suddenly can't be recovered by mining a now devalued asset). And, externally, I think more people are starting to understand the whole decentralization thing. Bitcoin is extremely powerful in that: It's very difficult to censor transactions It's very difficult to seize money There is full immunity to hyperinflation Nobody controls it. Not the devs (segwit wouldn't be struggling if they did), not the miners (we'd have 2MB or 8MB blocks if they did), not the regulators (drug markets wouldn't be so pervasive if they did). That's powerful, and Bitcoin is basically the only option if you want a money where some central authority (be it the Etherum foundation or the federal reserve) can't decide to enforce some new rule that you aren't expecting and aren't okay with. No other money can make these claims.