If it can’t scale out, FOR WHATEVER REASON, its a dead man walking.
Or a niche store of value with new blockchain-based applications keeping it on life support. That's worked pretty well for a couple of years now, but Ethereum has taken over applications, and many cheaper competitors are vying for Ethereum's space. For just transactions, lightning is gaining some followers, as a layer 2 on bitcoin. Lightning still has a lot of issues, but looks more promising lately.