There are quite a large number of possible drivers here. It could be almost all Second Market, with a dash of China. It could be almost all a few people's foreknowledge of IMF haircuts, with a dash of China. It could be just that some whales were holding off until SR got shutdown. There are so many big reasons. China is definitely at least a sizable chunk of it, though.

That's certainly a possibility. For example, even if Bitcoin were only used outside of China, we would still expect exponential growth. With the addition of China growth can be faster. Not double exponential, but faster than it was. However, this assumes that China was not already part of the exponential growth so far. Still, Japan for example is not part of it as there is almost no adoption in Japan. If Japan jumps aboard, price could again go up faster. The old exponential curves would have to be slightly updated. Though given how fast the growth is (10x per year), adding in China or Japan is only like fast-forwarding a few weeks perhaps.

MtGox 1-year chart showing volume bars in USD (keep in mind that MtGox dominance has been dropping in terms of volume as well).

The curve looks a bit steep, similar to the middle of the last bubble rather than the beginning, so we may be in for a sort of half-bubble, where we go up only 5x or so before peaking. Or we might consolidate soon for a while, maybe with some corrections thrown in, and then continue to have an epic melt-up.

Almost more exciting than the prices are where Bitcoin will be when it hits quadruple or quintuple digits. What will the ecosystem look like?

Without regulation demanding that we treat all notional bitcoins as actual bitcoins, there's nothing stopping standards from developing where people simply refuse to deal with banks that don't show transparent blockchain operations. Right now all we can do is conjecture that Fort Knox has no gold, but with Bitcoin we can know for sure.

1099!!

Until like 1% of the world's wealth is in BTC. So several more years. We aren't even close.

It'll be hard for them to say that if we clear $300 when they said the same thing six months ago and it's already left that bubble peak in the dust. People will be thinking, "Shit this thing has more lives than a cat! It's not stopping!" Then we could see a *real* bubble.

When mainstream news pundits are talking about the amazing price growth, that's early warning. So far *crickets*

Perfect storm.

China's leading the breakout just now, new 6-month high of 1085 just hit on BTCChina but not yet on Stamp or Gox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYT8KsJDzR4&t=0m52s

S-curve of course, but that S doesn't start inflecting until wayyyyyyyy later, like when a significant percentage of the population owns a significant amount of BTC.

Crazy business idea: outlets all over the city where you can plug stuff in (mainly to charge phones) where you pay per watt with bitcoins! No need for safe or bill accepter or money pickup services. Just a bank of switchable outlets via deal with neighboring business. Add in wifi for bitcoins if the area is underserviced (public parks?).

"Roaring 20's...huge rallies...regulation years away"

That's what I like to hear.

It does look sort of like China was looking for an excuse to rally, but that's how these things go: bubbles attract attention, which attracts many strong hands and many more weak hands...some of whom become strong hands as their position prompts educational interest. In the end the price level is much higher, even after the "burst" (see 2011 and early 2013).

In other words, it looks like sentiment drove Baidu Jiasule to accept bitcoins, rather than their acceptance driving sentiment. The Baidu story isn't what caused China to catch the Bitcoin bug; it's proof that China has caught the Bitcoin bug.

And even short-term, look at it this way: there have been no major news stories on the price, and there won't be until we break the all-time high at $266. There've been no MSNBC or Xinhua interviews with mainstream finance people on the price, etc. Once we get that it'll be nearing time for a mid-term peak.

Do you believe in Bitcoin's future? If yes, it's always a good incredibly fantastic time to take a large position. I mean, imagine if you had taken - by chance - a position in early April, the worst possible time. Six months later and you've already made a profit despite buying at the worst possible time (unless you caught the very tippy top at $266, but the odds of that are negligible, and even so we'll probably break through that in a week or two as well).

People were asking this at $18, debating the points with all sorts of valid reasons. Many talked themselves out of it. It's thanks to those who second-guessed themselves that others were able to get in on the ground floor. Lack of belief in Bitcoin's future has historically been VERY expensive.

People were asking these questions back in January as the price zoomed toward $20.

"Oh look, it's overbought, better take profits."

"Oh oh, it's up so high, it'll really crash hard from $22."

Yeah it crashed hard...to $50, from $266.

I've said it time and again: if you think you're such an amazing trader that you can do better than the 1000% annual gain of just buying and holding, be my guest.

Yen withdrawals of similar size are also working fine, as of a few weeks ago.

Look at the chart. That whale buy pushed the price up $10 in a single go. If it didn't correct from there that would've been pure insanity.

So just a correction.