The price of BTC will continue to rise as long as people believe that it can become a currency or respected asset class in the future -- but only so long as that doesn't happen. Treated as a currency, if folks actually started to spend it, velocity would go up and its value would inflate away with no central authority to jump in and help.

As an asset, at some point, all the money that will go into it will go into it, and it won't grow anymore, the get-rich-quick game will be over, and people will start to sell, and the price will crater. This can even by triggered by the $30 billion dollars in new money required to pay miners each year.

LN is perfect because unless you squint it's a plausible attempt to solve some of the limitations of the underlying asset.

But here in reality, opening and closing a single LN channel for everyone on earth would take over 150 years. It would cost 1/3 of a trillion dollars in transaction fees. If you broadcast an old wallet state you'll lose your coins. If any intermediate node goes down, it'll lock up your funds. It suffers from terrible illiquidity.

The same number of channels now as 3 years ago. Usage is not growing. It's not a viable solution. It is, however, great distraction.

Just 18 more months!