Recent run

[kerstone]

Does anyone have any ideas what is causing this? Is it related to mining? Are there ways to predict trends based on mining info? I realize these are very generalized statements, but this only reflects my lack of technical understanding at this point.
What do you think about this run, is this price sustainable? The trend seems to be run, slight pullback, leveling.
Who were the buyers yesterday? Is there a lot of short term trading in bitcoin?
I guess I'm just trying to understand who's involved in this market, and what drives it.

[georgeu2000]

There are many opinions on what drives any market, and little scientific evidence.

It doesn't have anything to do with mining. The amount of bitcoins created is pretty much constant.

It has do to with supply vs. demand. I think more and more people are finding out about Bitcoin, and that is what is driving the price up.

[yucca]

Yes, public awareness is contributing, checkout google search rank for "bitcoin":

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q

[desper]

Avalon Asic's pricing for their batch 3 was released Friday: the cost will be 88BTC payable in BTC unless you are in China. So possibly loads of people were buying BTC for that.

Also there has been loads of publicity in Spain recently due to what has been happening in Cyprus.

I suspect the above might explain the sudden jump from $50 - $75 and the relative weakness right now.

[kerstone]

I didn't hear about that gear related news, good info, seems logical. I need to keep up with this kind of info. I'm totally new to this world, not a programmer, and no next to nothing about the mining process. Seems to me though, that there must be some major links between determining behavior and aspects of the mining process. This is a totaaly uneducated assumption tho!!!