Sounds like a lot of bitching to me.

Author must have sold his BTC at $18k and is now salty

If you had a decentralized and private way of earning money and you had to choose between that and  someone guiding you all the way from beginning to end, providing you full support for any kind of issues you encounter and so on... Would you choose the hard or the easy way? My gut feeling says the larger percentage would take the easy way because you feel "safer" being guided.

You get the same feeling of safety when you come here as a newbie and are guided around. But how many people who are into crypto get the support they need? We don't have customer service and forking Bitcoin Core off GitHub to read the docs isn't the same as entering a bank and being met by someone who wants to help you.

Therefore, a lot of people really are in the game for the money. Where large sums are being made, there will always be an increase in the percentage of people who don't care about anything but profit.

Lots of people are selling Bitcoin through banks, but it's not a requirement. Peer-to-peer remains an option you can still pick as a Bitcoin holder.. so adoption is in my opinion not slowed down or anything, it's just that it takes a long while before people start realizing "hey, we are finally getting it and we certainly are needing it!". That's when BTC clicks as a need for the average human, because privacy and freedom are two of our basic rights. We need it and it's evolving faster and better than ever before.

The author is one of those people who likes to point fingers, but never come up with a solution. So let's compare the Banking system as an example...

How many people know how Central Banks work and how the Banks interact with them and how transfers between Banks work and things like "Automated Clearing Houses" and "RTGS system" .....but they still use Banks. 

So why is Bitcoin any different? Why should everyone want to know how the Blockchain work ...if they just need to be able to use it. Some people want to know and some people just want to use it.... it is as simple as that. 

I guess people in this industry are not primarily into money, but also to the benefits. But I would agree if it is the reason why many people stayed. Bitcoin, a digital currency in its nature, is now considered by many as a profitable investment. Currency as an investment? This is already enough to explain my point. Its volatility makes it different to other currencies both in digital and physical world. No matter how we view its benefit such as being free of tax, faster transaction and such, being profitable will still be on top. So I guess, this somewhat is making sense. Not in the aspect of adoption because that is another story concerning government policies.

I think that most people are in the crypto industry because of the money. You cannot make 10%-100% with banks nowadays, but it's reasonable with crypto.

Adoption is slow because crypto is not user friendly at all. From the concept, to wallets, to transactions, to custody, to ...

My perception of Bitcoin is that it will become the world's reserve currency aka a standard of value - YES, in my opinion it will overtake Gold's market cap in a couple of years. - and it will also become the mainstream currency. Globalization is a real thing and country borders get thinner year-by-year. Why should we complicate with a bunch of currencies when we have an evolved one right in front of our eyes?

In another scenario Bitcoin could simply remain a proof-of-value while countries around the world will use a digital/crypto version of their fiat currencies.

That is not accurate, bitcoin was created to give those that want it an option to use a permissionless form of money that gives them freedom, make no mistake banks are always going to exist in some way or form and the same is true for fiat currencies, those in positions of power derive a great deal of it from the control they have of the economy and no matter what happens this is not going to change.

Also bitcoin as an asset that is completely free was bound to attract speculators, after all if people can speculate with fiat why are they not going to speculate with bitcoin? And if they want to go to a bank and withdraw their money then that is their call, as long as bitcoin itself adheres to its core principles then everything is fine.

People won't easily understand the value of technology. The initial move towards an innovation takes place as a result of the profitability. Later only people will tend to know more about the true need of technology that eliminates the usage of intermediary (Banks). Out of ten people who are into bitcoin will have the knowledge about bitcoin and uses it accordingly, rest of the users could've known and started using it for the money it provides.

Let's have a common thought process, if the innovation hasn't got any form of money associated with it. What'll be the situation by now. Maybe for the efficiency this technology would've been used on large scale firms, but this could've never been this popular as now.

It isn't that odd or anything, People would naturally go towards the path that most take. A path that can easily make their lives a LOT easier and Bitcoin doesn't do that. From the time to learn how it works to manage your funds, to learning how exchanges work, or tl;dr, just issues that make you PERSONALLY do everything, people wouldn't really want to do it UNLESS they really need to. And since there's an alternative that can better improve their QoL, they'd go there. This is why my idea was always a coexistence between the two since people wouldn't really want something automated, something easy to use, to just disappear.

I also doubt that such issues would remain as an issue in the future anyway, Bitcoin has continued to stay true to its purpose and hasn't really strayed from that. Just the fact that it remained true to itself is a testament that it could go a long way, as long as people support it that is.