Is there any academic research on the influences of Bitcoin's long term valuation? Is there any academic research or theories about what future events and metrics will most influence BTC's long term valuation relative to fiat currency?
There are some research papers out there, including about bitcoins economical viability. A wonderful (a pleasure for hours) and fairly complete list can be found on the wiki. A random chosen abstract:


  Bitcoin has emerged as a fascinating phenomenon of the ﬁnancial
  markets. Without any central authority issuing the currency, it has
  been associated with controversy ever since its popularity and public
  interest reached high levels. Here, we contribute to the discussion by
  examining potential drivers of Bitcoin prices ranging from fundamental
  to speculative and technical sources as well as a potential inﬂuence
  of the Chinese market. The evolution of the relationships is examined
  in both time and frequency domains utilizing the continuous wavelets
  framework so that we comment on development of the interconnections in
  time but we can also distinguish between short-term and long-term
  connections.


Have fun! :)