1. BTC has been increasingly acting unstably: transactions cost a lot and take a long time to confirm. The BTC core development team has proven itself incompetent and unable to handle the situation properly.

2. In Litecoin's case: its activation of Segwit may attract BTC core and other BTC enthusiasts.

3. Ethereum's recovery from DAO hack. I personally think the swift hard fork in this scenario was a great call, and it really convinced me of the leadership at the Ethereum Foundation.

4. Second generation proof-of-stake systems are increasingly looking like they'll work. A movement away from proof-of-work as a consensus algorithm I find crucial to the long term success of any cryptocurrency.

5. BTC ETF (and Ethereum ETF certainly also going to be denied by the SEC) application and the Winklevii garnered cryptocurrencies a lot of attention.

Overall, I think people are finally metaphorically grasping the concepts around cryptocurrencies. As a result of this, several currencies are coming out that are rapidly outpacing BTC in innovation, especially Ethereum.