You are forgetting that the biggest number of on-chain transactions have always been coming from day-traders. And traders need volatility to make profit and bitcoin price has been stable most of the past ~3 months in the $30k range with very little movement.
Sorry but doesn't make sense, in the last two weeks, we have seen a lot of volatility, prices have rebounded from 30k to near 50k yet the number of transactions isn't picking up even a bit.
It is not just 2018 numbers, we have it every now and then. We saw it from Nov 2019 to Jan 2020 when price was stuck in $6k, then again in June to August 2020 when price wasn't able to break $10k and ....
Again, you're comparing periods of a bear market with the rally that's happening now?
And even if we do compare with those periods, we're down 50% comparing to those times.
In short this has very little to do with bitcoin usage.
In my opinion, it has a lot to do, basically, without traders, there are about 100 thousand people doing transactions a day, meaning usage is down the drain. No matter how you try to put it, that's the only reasonable explanation.
Fees are down, price is up, blocks are empty...what other conclusion can you draw from this that makes sense?