Kim Jong Il's death will have absolutely no effect on bitcoins, unless the new Dear Leader chooses to detonate a nuke or two to show he's top dog.  Very few North Koreans have access to the Internet, and hence no bitcoins, so no demand from there either.

I predict DVD sales of Team America: World Police may rise a little however.  Ronery, so ronery.

What we're probably seeing is the temporary exit of speculators.  I have no doubt they'll be back, but at this stage there is no one willing to throw thousands of bitcoins around to feed their speculative needs.  A boring and static price tends to drive the arbitrage and speculative traders away, which makes the price stagnate even more.  It's a feedback loop.

It's similar to a game of poker.  When the fish have gone broke and only the experienced players are left at the table, it's time to take the chips and go home.  Any further play will just hurt the experienced player.

Bitcoin owner: Buy bitcoins!

Potential customer: Why?  What will I get out of it?

Bitcoin owner: It will cause the price to go up

Potential customer: So who will benefit from this?

Bitcoin owner: I will.  It's gonna be great.

Potential customer: ...

Max has to be careful for his campaign not to come across as 'buy MY bitcoins'.  He can declare he's got no financial interest in it, but ultimately, as bitcoin is almost anonymous, no one can prove this.

Some people are easily excitable.  $3.20 and it's a rally?

Hopefully bitcoin does go up like a space shuttle.  Unless it's the Challenger.

Noooo! Price is going down.  Below $3.  I hope someone steps in and saves us from these massive sells!

Or not.

Max's campaign to crash Goldman Sach's through purchasing silver to make the price skyrocket was a bit of a fizzler.  The price did rise in a bubble earlier this year, but just as quickly popped.  Goldman is still here.  I sold my stash of silver at a very handy profit.  I doubt I should be thanking Max for that.

Max's bitcoin campaign may be a little more successful, but hopefully it won't come across as a 'buy my bitcoins' campaign.

Gavin Andresen, one of the "core developers", is explicitly advising people "not to make heavy investments in Bitcoins", as it is "kind of like a high risk investment"

Jered Kenna, CEO of TradeHill a major Bitcoin Exchange also cautions eager investors and stated to the The New York Observer that "Bitcoin is still an experiment and not to bet the house"

As long as people keep the above in mind then it's all good.  If bitcoin falling to $0 tomorrow would cause undue hardship on your life or your family, it's time to exit.  If not, speculate away.

Corollary to the Fuji Analysis is this ancient Japanese proverb:  'He who climbs Mount Fuji once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool'

I am making a Captain's Log as we speak

$4 on January 5.1

So, pulling the bids down should pull the asks down along with it?  Or not?  If it's an experiment there should be some goals stated, instead of just saying 'let's try this, it may be cool'.

The experiment lacks one crucial factor to actually be called an experiment: a hypothesis.  What do you expect to happen when bids are retracted to your target price?  Why do you think people may be interested in participating?

Still on a downward trend.  I wouldn't expect it to go below $2.50 however.  Some people who bought on the sizzle of the news are likely to hold for better selling opportunities.

The hype from the Fox news story has worn off.  Many people bought on the news and kept buying while it was going up.  As soon as momentum dropped the speculators tried to cash out as quickly as possible.

Oh, if I had a bitcoin for every time someone gazed upon a bid 'wall' and either took solace from its alleged support, or the sheer size of it when contemplating how difficult it would be to 'knock down'.  The 'walls' can appear and disappear at the whims of a bot, or at least the single keystroke of a keyboard.  Whoever is controlling them isn't stupid enough to let the bids remain if he or she sees the market heading the wrong way.

The price has softened slightly to $2.90.  I wouldn't be surprised if the 'wall' disappears within the next few hours and magically reappears at $2.70.  If that gives comfort to people going long that the price has real support, then more power to them.

History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes.  I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a mini rally.  Renewed hope and optimism for the price going up because the price is going up.  Why are more people buying?  Because it's going up.  It may have a nice run up to $4 or maybe even $5 before the more sober market participants begin to sell into the strength.  Remember that we've got at least two months of mining produce to be sold off to pay the bills (or sold when the price starts to turn).  These miners haven't been selling during that period as they would have been selling at a loss (assuming they didn't have 'free' or stolen power).

Enjoy the rising price, use it to make money, and don't stick around too long.  It's not fun being the bag holder when the music stops and all the other children have taken the available chairs.

Bitcoin mining won't really be sustainable until we're well under a million in terms of difficulty.

Let's wait a few more days before declaring the decline as being over.  We have seen rapid price increases before that didn't last more than a few days before being attacked by sellers.  Right now the price is volatile with thousands of bitcoins being traded every minute.  Very interesting activity, and very profitable.  I'm hoping it goes higher and keeps up its volatility.

Someone transfered 466,000btc a few minutes ago too.  Probably an exchange moving bitcoins, but such activity is still not the norm.

Sometime in the future (maybe 2013) bitcoin mining will reward miners with 25 btc per block instead of the current 50 btc.  That's a halving of the financial reward, or a doubling of the difficulty required to achieve 50 btc per kilowatt of power spent.

Most people contend this will cause bitcoins to increase in value as they become harder to create.  I counter that judging by past data from this year, an increasing difficulty in creating bitcoins is no support at all for a higher price. 

Mmm, all is fair in short selling and trading.  Let's face it, you're not really sorry about making that profit at someone else's expense 

It's like playing texas holdem poker and giving someone a bad beat on the river.  The winner says something like 'sorry about that' as they rake in the chips