Bitcite.com is a search engine for (bitcoin, altcoins, and blockchain) research reports. You might find what you're looking for there.

Livecoin is definitely a shady exchange. A while back, I signed up with Livecoin just to test it out as a secondary exchange, and I bought a small amount of crypto, and when I came back I didn't find them. So I went to go through the history transactions and because it was a while back I couldn't see anything because they don't show you old history. I contacted support and their response was something along the lines of "your transactions and balances were more than 30 days old, and we can not do anything".

Never using them. Thank goodness they were never my primary exchange.

Well in terms of Bitcoin, just look at the yearly lows. It just keeps increasing. That might not be the reason for adoption, but clearly there is demand. Speculative demand, is still demand...until people stop speculating.

If you're new, then you should probably start with something more known.

Everything takes time. The crypto market experienced many bull runs. Every bull run, makes the last one looks smaller... more specifically BTC bull runs. The last one, alt coins and bitcoin experienced. But here is the thing, if the bear rally is as big as the bull rally, then it will take time till investors gain the trust again. It will come. Just don't invest amounts you're not comfortable with.

Bitcite.com is a search engine for bitcoin and cryptocurrency research. Searching for reports can be a pain in the ass, so this might be useful.