I'm not familiar with "bubbles"

[chiropteran]

Does the bitcoin market really follow the pattern of a bubble?  I was under the impression that a bubble market went up and up constantly until it crashes all the way down to it's correct value, or even lower than the correct value.

But when I follow bitcoin value, I see it going up and up... and then it falls 2-3 dollars, and then it goes up again, and falls a little, and such.  While it is trending upwards overall at a very fast rate, it's also losing a lot of value occasionally on an hourly basis.  Last 24 hours for example on mtgox is not all moving upwards, but it's not crashing either.  Is this a pattern that past "bubbles" followed?

[2weiX]

"generally" in a bubble, you see an "extraordinary" increase of the price of a "thing" over a "short" amount of time.

just define all the words in "" such as you like and you might have the definition of a bubble.

[TraderTimm]

The reason the term "bubble" is popular is because the central banks are actively participating in creating one. The other comments are right that a speculative 'mania' is often the driver for rapid appreciation of price. This however doesn't account for actively growing markets with sound fundamentals. Many technology companies could be mis-classified as 'bubbles' in their early years, because their initial stock price didn't fully reflect the markets they would be participating in.

Bitcoin isn't a 'bubble'. Bitcoin is the true face of unfettered currency. Welcome to the future.

[triforcelink]

When something becomes overvalued, and it keeps becoming more and more overvalued, that is a bubble in my eyes. As I have been reading more and more about bitcoin, I feel it is severely undervalued, and as more and more people learn about it and start using it, its value will grow even further.

[Jaime Frontero]

only take showers, huh?

[Jack of Diamonds]

The market is constantly balancing itself between correct price per btc in contrast to demand and difficulty level in the current market.

So at this point it will be natural to watch it bounce between $24-$30 and at the next difficult level, $27-$35 or more etc.