You said it price is based on market cap and demand.
Perception is not in this, except if you are lucky.
The "steady state" price is based upon market cap and demand, which will be the ultimate goal.
However, the speculative part (which has to end one day, and whose sole basis is exactly the non-speculative steady-state outcome) will try to anticipate this.
See it as such, a gedanken experiment:
suppose nuclear power reactors don't exist yet, but the principles are known, and people propose to make them. Uranium, its fuel, which has no specific value for anything else than nuclear power reactors (say, in this gedanken experiment), has no actual market demand. Its "steady state" demand right now is essentially zero. However, the steady state demand for uranium in 20 years, when there will be potentially a strong demand for it, will be high.
If there were no speculation, uranium would be cheap, until such power reactors are build everywhere, and one starts needing it as fuel, and then the price will rise (S-type curve). Suppose that the demand for usage today for uranium is so low that its market price should be, if only depending on that usage, $1,- per kilogram. However, suppose that once there are 3000 power plants powering all of the world, the demand for a kilogram of uranium would be $ 10 000,- per kilogram. Without speculation, the price will remain $1,- until the reactors are there, and will then suddenly jump up to $ 10 000,-.
In reality, the price will not stay $1,- until those reactors are build. People wanting to be smart, will try to buy uranium now, at $ 1,-, and will try to sell it 20 years from now at $ 10 000,-. That will increase demand NOW, until the market price is such that speculators are not willing to take the risk anymore of buying uranium for much more than $ 1000,- if they think it has less than 10% chance for the scenario to come out and for uranium to be $ 10 000,-. So the price will then rise NOW ALREADY to $ 1000,-, anticipating the future 'steady state' price of $10 000,-.
The difference comes from 1) the desire to still make a buck (for less than a factor of 10, speculators won't take the risk), 2) the probability people think it will work out or it will fail 3) risk aversion.
But the price right now will already contain everything one can reasonably expect for the future. In the end, though, the future "steady state" price, when there is no significant speculation (to the moon) anymore, is the fundamental on which the current price is already based (together with probability of failure, risk aversion, and desire for profit).
If you "believe strongly in nuclear power" then you are willing to buy uranium at a higher price, than people being sceptical of it. The average weighted expectation (with your money where your mouth is) determines current market prices in a speculative market.
Once speculation (to the moon) is over, the "steady state" price is determined by the fundamental of the market. In advance, it is determined by the speculative expectation of that fundamental.
