Well, I see a lot of bulls showing exponential growth with everyone getting rich still. I see a dead cat bounce.
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Bitcoins
I certainly do agree with the qualities of Bitcoins. But they don't appeal that much to the mass, but to a fringe community of users. They're much harder to use than older payment methods and unless someone absolutely needs/wants anonymity, will probably not go through the trouble of getting Bitcoins.
I also think these wild rides up followed by crash reduces relegate Bitcoins to a joke, at least for now, in the eyes of most out there. Albeit we're gradually getting more exposures/interest in Bitcoins, I believe.
The wild fluctuations are a nuisance which will delay Bitcoin adoption, in my opinion. It makes it a casino. A gambling speculative toy and reduces it's efficiency as a currency.
The software is also still quite immature and the limits imposed on transactions and the size of the current blockchain are already put under strain. We need more years of development before it becomes suitable for day to day usage, if ever.
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The Bubble
I currently see a bubble, fueled by hype. The current upswing being the "dead cat bounce" after the crash, albeit it's losing speed. There was more and more news along the way up. There's still a lot going out albeit less and I believe it will keep going lower and lower for that part. Now that we peaked and crashed, the topic is less sensational and I expect medias to slowly move away, for the time being. Search trends for Bitcoins has been on the decline. Will it keep going that way?
If it does, the influx of new money might be cut short. The latest uptrend might be just a dead cat bounce, latecomers going for the "cheap" Bitcoins, but if the influx isn't maintained, the buying spree might get short of breath. I see a rebound that is running out of momentum.
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How I trade
So I have a completely opposite view to most out there it seems, not really being much interested in daytrading. Plotting charts might work well over the short term for a matter of hours/days, or even a few weeks. But on the long term, nothing beats the hype cycles which peak with media attention and mass enthusiasm. And those are fairly hard to predict in advance seeing one could start anytime with good news drawing more attention, more involvement and further fueling more news/enthusiasm in a self-feeding loop. Albeit once they start, the outcome is easy to guess. I started some time ago in the lows following the first Bitcoin bubble. I sold at the peak of the news, far fetched stories of various hypothetical scenarios where Bitcoins were about to go even more exponential in prices, when the amount of enthusiasm and imagined outcomes was stepping close to mass madness. Prices promptly came crashing down. Where did you sell at?
Many disruptive technologies were adopted fast, but it still took years for everyone to start using them. The telephone wasn't adopted in a few weeks. Computers were not adopted in a few weeks. The Internet was not adopted in a few weeks. Social networking sites like Facebook didn't become popular in a few weeks. It takes time for new things to mature into something that can make their way out there, if they ever do. Bitcoins might not even be the cryptocurrency to make it, if any cryptocurrency ever makes it.
My answer:
