Theories on what happened today?

[thezerg]

Gold silver is down so it is not a run away from fiat... markets basically neutral to down. 

So...why the rocket today?

[cheat_2_win]

Someone wanted to buy a lot of bitcoins. Since nobody was selling, remember we had historically low volume yesterday, he could not wait. Hence the price increase.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

Stephen Gornick mentioned that there is an article coming out in the printed version of The Economist.  Possibly someone thinks that the exposure will cause a price rise, and is frontrunning that event.

Sometime soon BitInstant will be announcing availability in dozens more countries, already available in beta.  That's going to be much more bullish for long-term demand than any printed article or block reward halving, IMO.

[Rothgar]

You see, it rained because there is a cold front coming in. 

[Agent Provocateur]

You see, it rained because there is a cold front coming in. 

lightning to the nations!

[Technomage]

The Economist article was out in print Saturday I think. That has created a lot of buzz in mainstream circles. I'm not very surprised about this rise and I think it's just the beginning. I tweeted quite a bit yesterday and thanks to the article a major Finnish economy magazine is very likely making a big article on Bitcoin. Lots of long-time-interested-but-skeptical people seem to be turning their attention to Bitcoin right now and they seem to be more convinced that it has to be taken more seriously.

I don't know about elsewhere but I'd imagine that an article like that (it was neutral-positive) in a very respectable magazine will get a lot of attention. Literally truckloads of new money is coming in right now. This is the best possible press we could hope for.

Here is the article btw: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113495.0

[Yuhfhrh]

The Economist article was out in print Saturday I think. That has created a lot of buzz in mainstream circles. I'm not very surprised about this rise and I think it's just the beginning. I tweeted quite a bit yesterday and thanks to the article a major Finnish economy magazine is very likely making a big article on Bitcoin. Lots of long-time-interested-but-skeptical people seem to be turning their attention to Bitcoin right now and they seem to be more convinced that it has to be taken more seriously.

I don't know about elsewhere but I'd imagine that an article like that (it was neutral-positive) in a very respectable magazine will get a lot of attention. Literally truckloads of new money is coming in right now. This is the best possible press we could hope for.

Here is the article btw: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113495.0

Yes, tell your neighbors, tell your friends, tell everyone about bitcoins to no end!