Is its popularity waning?
Here are weekly peer-to-peer localbitcoins cash trade data for two random countries as time goes on. Right-most area is the most recent past week.
Those trying to undermine and manipulate bitcoin stem from the central bank system around the world;
-the central banks dictate policy to all the operating big banks around the world and have essentially tried their best to ban bitcoin related transactions for more than four years straight, ever since 2013, and have failed at stopping bitcoin's growth, adoption, and popularity
-the central banks fund efforts to undermine bitcoin, providing plenty of capital and liquidity to private companies and venture backed groups such as Digital Currency Group (they own Coinbase, GDAX, Kraken, Bitpay, and media outlet Coindesk) and Roger Ver/Bitmain to undermine and break the bitcoin protocol and/or manipulate trade
and/or sustain short-term spam attacks.
Above are just small examples.
First, educate yourself and then others. Please checkout the link to the bitcointalk post in my signature titled: How to teach Bitcoin to a 7 year old.
Bitcoin is a secure, decentralized, trustless and open system which cannot be banned nor controlled.
Bitcoin is ultimate store of value and its popularity has strengthened over time and maximizes value compared to any other altcoin...why?:
If it can be shutdown, and have assets frozen by a bank or government, there would be no value
If it wasn't secure, there would be no value.
If it wasn't immutable, there would be no value.
If it wasn't globally distributed, there would be no value.
If it wasn't so strong, open-source decentralized and unstoppable, there would be no value.
If it wasn't so scarce, there would be no value.
If it was easy to spam transactions, there would be no value
If it required a central 3rd party to function, there would be no value
If it was stopped after all major banks on Earth banned in 2013 to today, there would be no value. (say "bitcoin" when transacting and watch the block of the transaction. simple fix=never mention "bitcoin").
If it didn't have the history of 8+ years (and still no hacker can exploit bitcoin blockchain), there would be no value
If it was exactly like fiat and only did transactions, there would be no value.
Bitcoin's value is worth hundreds of billions USD today. Altcoins however are scams, weak, pyramid schemes not offering these values.
Bitcoin has all the characteristics needed combined to hold the most value and increasing more than any other financial-asset option coming from the manipulated fiat central-banking debt-system. (more than stocks, more than houses, more than gold)
Extra graphics to indicate the worldwide impact on the emergence of bitcoin in its infancy today:
Chart of performance of assets from Xmas 2014 to Dec 1. 2017 (in USD terms):
Bitcoin/USD
S&P 500 Stocks
Real Estate (REITs)
Gold
Bonds
