Bitcoin 2017 year has been great gaining momentum from the previous year. Getting ATH this year is an accomplishment. Experienced a lot of ups and downs, but still bitcoin is standing. Their's still a major roadblock ahead, which is the scaling issue. Debate has been going on, but I hope when the dust settles, we will see bitcoin ecosystem to flourish more. We are not even half of the year, but the price of bitcoin is looking good. We all hope that the price will continue to rise so that another ATH will be achieved at the end of the year.
Each year it gains not just momentum but continual dominant establishment. And established globally, I mean even in this forum, so many from Philippines, Indonesia, India, USA, Europe, Africa here. Many trades in China, Russia, South America as well. That is global establishment which continues to get stronger.
Bitcoin has emerged as the king of all asset classes for store of value. No other asset can touch it, not Stocks, not Gold, not Real Estate, not Bonds.
Additionally no altcoin can ever touch Bitcoin as store of value because no one will ever trust that altcoin's organizer of its premine "fairness" and Bitcoin has been already established around the GLOBE for many years.
There is power in Bitcoin's simple transmission via a communications channel to another country without requiring an intermediary. The full combination of decentralized enforced by small blocksize, immutable, cryptographically secured, established for nearly a decade, and scarce in supply is what makes it beautiful and strong.
Bitcoin cannot be transformed into worthless, expendible fiat or trashcash.
Scaling can be introduced to Bitcoin without touching bitcoins code and simply using one or many 3rd party intermediaries. Even trash cash has a vast network of such things like Visa network or Mastercard Network. The bitcoin community is much smarter than either of these networks, so wait and see.
To anyone wanting to learn more about Bitcoin or even world's financial system see post titled: "Hacks & puppets & forks - how to destroy bitcoin"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1834310.0