How Silk Road Impacted Bitcoin

I'm curious to know this sub's point of view on how the Silk Road marketplace affected Bitcoin as we know it. While the dark web marketplace was essentially shut down years ago, I feel as though the current state of crypto would be different had the marketplace never existed.

I understand that Silk Road's goals were far more than just gaining exposure for cryptocurrencies, but it did open a lot of people's eyes up on the potential that cryptocurrencies offer. With nearly 1 Million buyers and consumers interacting with the market place at one point, it would be silly to say that this didn't bring massive exposure and utility to the new form of currency.

That being said, where do you think Bitcoin and other forms of crypto would be today without Silk Road? The way I see it, there's 3 main takes on the impact:

• Positive: Silk Road provided so much exposure to the potential of cryptocurrencies that it outweighs the negative concepts attached to the marketplace.
• Neutral: With or without Silk Road, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were inevitably going to succeed, and the online marketplace did nothing to speed up this process.
• Negative: If it weren't for the illegal activities that Bitcoin has been utilized for, such as silk road, cryptocurrencies would have had faster progression and less skepticism from the public eye and the government.

Coming from somebody who got into crypto long after Silk Road's days had come to an end, I'm very interested to hear some of this sub's responses. Cheers friends.