I see repeated often the mantra of "difficulty follows price, not the other way around." I've wondered if up to this point that it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy among investors.
Recently with litecoin, we saw the network hash rate and difficulty begin going up days before price ever did:
What about with bitcoin? Has the the price ever followed the difficulty? Yes, all throughout 2010, as you can see below in my horrible patchwork chart constructed from a couple of sources (bitcoincharts, which only goes back to Aug 2010, and a blog that had historical rates).
If someone could make neater BTC charts I'd be happy.
Obviously the scale is fucked up between them, but I think you get the picture.
