If somebody new is buying in I really doubt they would put up a nice large bid 'wall' like that.  It's our friend, the market player, coming back in for another spin.

One thing we have consistently seen over the past few months is a plateau of stability where people think 'phew! the price has stabilised and can't fall further', right before new lows due to rapid sell offs.  Falling from $4 to $2 is just as bad as $30 to $15, percentage wise.  I don't think bitcoins will once again be worth cents each, but I also think people are placing far too much hope in future developments.  The 50 to 25 btc block reward is one such very often claimed hope.  I actually think it would place pressure to reduce the price of bitcoins, not increase them.  It's like doubling the difficulty today.

I like your optimism: talking about the bitcoin future decades from now.  Three decades ago people were wetting themselves to have a home computer with 64kb of RAM.  Two decades ago few people outside of academia had heard of the Internet.  Maybe bitcoin is the next big thing, but I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it.

Hoarding isn't an issue right now as we're still in the price deflationary stage after the bubble burst.  Should the price reinflate there will once again be pressure not to spend, as a bitcoin tomorrow can buy more than a bitcoin today.  Some industries work well on this premise, such as the computer hardware industry.  But having a currency that discourages spending is an experiment I'll be watching with great interest.

Okay, I know your comment is in jest (as it doesn't make sense any other way).  But I'll bite.  Having traveled through India I saw what the locals did with their waste and the condition of the rivers.  Bacteria don't care about Western or Eastern values, political correctness or whether people have mobile phones or not.  Bacteria don't discriminate in the people that they infest or in the illness caused.  Hygienic disposal of waste is obviously far more important than mobile phone ownership.

Armageddon

TH's price has usually been very close to MtGox's for the past several months that I've been observing the price.  It's an aberration, not usual behaviour, to see large spreads between the two.

I prefer to get my trading tips from Cassandra.  Problem is, I never believe her.

He would be referring to the MtGox/TH spread: According to bitcoincharts, $2.51 versus $2.39.  Huge difference that no one seems to be taking advantage of.  I would suggest TH is having technical problems at the moment.

Everyone is so convinced that a halving of the block reward in 2013 will automatically lead to an increase in bitcoin's price.  I wager that it won't.  Why?  We have seen previously that difficulty does not support price.  Difficulty follows price down as miners pull out.  Where difficulty was once 1.8M it's struggling to maintain 1.1M.

A halving in the block reward is the exact same thing as doubling the difficulty right now in terms of reward per kilowatt of power spent.  What do people think would happen?  Would bitcoin's price double, or would even more miners pull out because they're all mining at a loss (stolen or 'free' power not withstanding).  Remember that speculators absolutely do not care about how much money was spent to create the bitcoins they are juggling back and forth.  They would happily trade the bitcoins a miner sold at a loss all day.  The cost to produce it doesn't effect them.  What sane miner would sell at a loss?  Those that see the price falling further and decide to cut their losses.  We're probably looking at many of them right now, who are still mining underwater in the hope of selling bitcoins for more money in the future.  That creates a large overhang in selling pressure well into the future.

I have done plenty of actual research into markets and economics.  Bitcoin doesn't really have a market.  'It's worth what people will pay for it'.  Yes, true, but there's very little apart from speculation and niche uses holding the value up. 

What dictates the price?  On the way up people were buying because the price was going up.  That was the only reason to buy, if people are truly honest.  On the way down people were buying for a quick profit, others were selling while the price was high and didn't fall further.

Where does that leave us today?  Unknown.  Could go up from here, but could also easily languish under $1 for years.

Look on the bright side.  At least they had no shortage of toilet paper.

Savvy speculators snapped up mint condition Zimbabwean banknotes and put them on eBay.  I bought a $1 trillion Zimbabwean banknote a few months ago, to go with my Yugoslavian 500 billion dinar banknote.  A 50 million Weimar Republic banknote also joined the collection.

I'm giving out plenty of money to middle-men at the moment.  Just took out a mortgage to buy a house.  The bank is loving it.  Couldn't get the builder to accept bitcoins.

Bitcoins have already hit $30.  It's not so much a premonition as a... postmonition.  My postmonition record is pretty much 100%.  Astounding.

It's going to hit $1000 by Jan 1 for sure. 

$1000 Zimbabwean dollars.

Over two billion people lack a proper toilet to take a dump into every day.  An electronic P2P currency requiring a computer equal to their yearly wage in cost is probably far from their immediate concerns.

Just because a price has fallen gives people no reason to buy back in.  We've seen plenty of examples in regards to bitcoin over the past few months.

What happens if the 'manipulator' decides to cash out his or her earnings and play in another market, such as shares, bonds or commodities?  Just because the money was made on bitcoins doesn't mean it has to stay in this market.  The guarantee that the 'manipulator' is ready to jump back in is backed by nothing.

I dream that someone finds a compelling use for bitcoins beyond the Silk Road.  There are none yet.

You're not the only one.  Many people wish they could have dumped their bitcoins for at least $20 each.  Anyone claiming they didn't mind missing the bubble just isn't very good at math.

Merchants usually don't like to receive $10 for their sale... make that $9.50 a minute later.  No, $8.50 5 minutes later.  Oh look, it's up to $11.  No, back to $8.50 again.  It's fun for speculators but not for people who want to know how much money they are getting, one minute to the next.  For the foreseeable future bitcoin is directly tied into the value of other currencies.

A business doesn't have to handle bitcoin at all to be successful (well, unless it's Silk Road).

It's actually quite nice when the price isn't falling 5 or 10% within a few minutes.  Some of the crazy trading action in recent weeks has been triggered by Bitcoinica.  While speculators profit everyone else who wants to use bitcoin for something useful (they do exist, somewhere) are hurt by the massive volatility.