It is still increasing at a rate that would make most startups jealous when they look at their own growth rate: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=2year...
"If it ever becomes popular for more than crime and tax evasion, that's as lot of Christmas lights."
It's already more popular than that. Bitcoin is no longer driven principally by "sin" activities: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2808762 And see the nice growth in various areas: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bitcoin#Growth