How is bitcoin not going to reach 50k and bitcointalk/CMC losing influence connected? I don't get the connection. Or is there something I missed? Bitcointalk and CMC losing influence is actually a good thing, whether you like it or not. The biggest names losing influence means that there's good competition going on. Which is good overall to decrease centralization in the space.
That and we have actual business news organizations starting to cover Bitcoin and it's movements, Bitcointalk will continue on but with a lot more altcoin discussion. Which is fine especially if the main developer area stays untouched we don't need or want the spam in there anyways.
Those are both very good points. The other thing to keep in mind is that forums themselves are not all that appealing to the mainstream. I've told many friends who're just getting into crypto about this forum and most are daunted by it's volume. Searching google is much easier for an answer to a question you may have, and bitcoin discussion isn't their thing.
One friend who has more affinity to forums in general is reluctant to join because of the "Dark Web" affiliations the forum has had, and to be frank, all the scams that seem to get their footing here.
These things may be bad for the forum, but they really don't affect bitcoin's position in the mainstream market. Like kingcolex said, news and information about bitcoin is all over the media now, mainstream business news outlets are reporting about crypto.
And as for CMC, I believe that's purely attributable to market share. As in they now have to share the market with the hundreds of other sites providing the same information.
