What do you think will cause the next spike?
I think that the pattern seen with Bitcoin so far is not fundamentally based on particular "saviour" events coming along and causing massive spikes; it is more a case of the cumulative effect of people hearing about, learning about, and joining the ecosystem. The relatively complicated nature of Bitcoin technology, the host of associated security problems (ironically none of them really to do with the Bitcoin protocol itself), etc. make for an extremely extended and slow adoption rate, even though this is enough still to result in massive price increases.
As the positive feedback loop strengthens enough to push the uptrend, any news that happens to be around at the time and loosly fits the bill can get picked up on as "the" cause of the spike. Look back at Bitcoin history. People say one of the previous spikes was caused by people in Cyprus investing in Bitcoin. That's nonsense.
But anyway, to answer your question without being too pedantic, I think simple adoption will cause the next spike, and that most of it may come, on this occasion, from good old America!
