What is the main reason for the recent price raises?

[kefky]

What is the main reason for the recent price raises?
Really Cyprus?
Will the exchange rate fall down in the next few weeks or will it raise further?

[nobbynobbynoob]

Bitcoin fever has (unexpectedly?) exploded in recent weeks. Cyprus may be playing its part, though IMO not as much as some seem to think, because the gold price has not rallied at all really (yet) during this time, and that is typically the first port of call in just about any kind of financial crisis.

Analysing bitcoin price trends since its inception four years ago, one thing stands out: bitcoin is very bullish, one of the most bullish assets ever in the history of civilization? The price does drop sometimes but it always rebounds, often rapidly. The only real bear market was from about June through October of 2011, I believe. Nevertheless, all investments are risky, and this could be just a massive speculative bubble about to pop (though the price might still be $30-$50+ even after that, for all we know/guess). For this reason, bitcoin and PMs complement each other well (and I find litecoin a handy complementary cryptocurrency to hold/speculate on, too).

[superarthur]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21863593 <-this has been reported in various news outlet

[Gator-hex]

Max Keiser, who uses RT to reach 550 million worldwide viewers said...

1% of global trade in Bitcoins = $100,000 Bitcoin.

Keiser Report: Bitcoin Millionaires vs Paper Billionaires (E416)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t39jCXXIrY

He also claims to be Bitcoin millionaire.

[Drewbert]

A large number of people out there FINALLY figured out that fiat money is a joke, and banks are not a safe place to store it.

And bitcoins are easier to transport or hide than gold or silver.

[gochk]

A large number of people out there FINALLY figured out that fiat money is a joke, and banks are not a safe place to store it.

And bitcoins are easier to transport or hide than gold or silver.

When can one ever trust bankers? Or for that matter US Fed Reserve or FDIC!!

[piranha]

 What really intrigues me is even though the price is in the 80's today. We are still early adopters.. When you consider that 1% of market penetration would make 1 bitcoin worth over a 100k..

[nobbynobbynoob]

Indeed, that is most pertinent. Bitcoin is either ultimately going big or bust, for my money (quite literally!).

[BigJohn]

I don't know, to be honest it doesn't make any sense to me. I can understand that people are finally finding out about Bitcoin more. But that would be a steady increase, not going from $20 to $80 in a month. The European situation doesn't hold up. As was said, other physical assets like gold and silver haven't reacted at all, and actually maybe even lost some.

Even the whole FinCEN thing doesn't add up. So they greenlit it. So what? Say someone decided to take that opportunity to open a US exchange or whatnot. For the price to quadruple, Bitcoins would have to become several times more scarce. So unless someone is buying 70% of the entire BTC supply, that still doesn't explain the price hike.

The ASIC situation could be another. Maybe lots of Bitcoins are locked up in the expectation of being used for an ASIC in the near future. The situation with BFL would make this even worse. But again, it would have to be something like half the global supply of Bitcoins to see this kind of price hike.

The only options are either a massive supply of Bitcoins became unavailable, or a massive amount of new users started using Bitcoin, or it's a bubble.

[piranha]

I know some may label this a conspiracy.. But the truth is the Fed is naked shorting Gold and silver to keep people in dollars and stocks. They have to.. We have a stock market bubble because of cheap dollars ..This isn't because of little investors putting their money in.. there is very little volume. It's the banks speculating with all this QE money.

  Second we have a bond bubble .. Treasury are the highest they been in like 50 years .. Because the Fed is buying them to monetize our debt.

3rd we have an unstable dollar.. Because the fed is diluting the currency supply by 1 trillion dollars per year.. Other countries are getting out of the petro dollar ..

 The dollar is the weakest point in this whole scheme. Because the fed can't use policy to control it.. If they do.. By raising interest rates.. It will collapse the bond and stock market... and cause The US government not to be able to pay the interest on our debt.

Btw we are already bankrupt it's this little circus the fed is using to keep thing going.  Sooner or later with all this money printing the dollar will lose it value and collapse and hyper inflation will ensue..

When the dollar collapse happens gold and silver will rocket..

[jwhitman]

There is certainly something to be said about the raising price being a product of the raising price. People are excited about the prospect of the price rise and buying into it causing the price to further rise.

[txoomy]

I've been buying precious metals for a number of years and have seen many up and down trends. I think this up trend is good, but temporary.

I guesstimate that within 2-3 weeks we'll be back to around $65, which is still great, but a more appropriate growth.

[bitsidian]

I think Cyprus was just an indicator for the general dislike a lot of people are building towards big banks; the idea of a decentralized currency seems more and more attractive to people when they see what the EU et al are doing with their money.

[notme]

Aliens.

Tornados

[notme]

Aliens.

Tornados

Sink Holes.

Actually, it's inept, kleptocratic governments being raped by narcissistic bankers who are in a race to devalue currencies to limit the costs of the mountain of debt we keep adding to.

[AnonyMint]

Numerous media stories about Bitcoin.

Greater fools are rushing in.

Got to keep them coming at exponentially increasing rate, else price  will decline.

[AnonyMint]

^ Thinks Bitcoin has no value. Probably pushing Ponzi.

No, I think there are two possibilities:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159908.0

1. World domination as a 666 system
2. Crash and burn

There is no scaling for a middle ground.

[numismatics]

Yellow arrow is when FinCen released this report: http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdf.

[freedomno1]

Honestly i'm not sure whether to speculate and buy more at $100 and wait for the market to reach 120 then sell back at 110 or Just hold and see what happens for now quite a rally

[AnonyMint]

Yellow arrow is when FinCen released this report: http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdf.

Very astute. I have had many silver bugs tell me they sold silver to buy Bitcoin after FinCEN legalized Bitcoin.