It was China's "ban" that caused the stopping of buying for Bitcoin from the Chinese, and what made them buy in the first place was the constant uproar in price from the willy bot's buying. I'd say the "Willy" bot contributed to most of the run up, maybe 70%-80%, and the rest was everything else(People buying from the increasing Bitcoin price, Hype, china etc)
The only way Bitcoin could ever reach $1000+ again without the help of a bot artificially inflating the price, is if it becomes widely adopted, meaning millions of people are using it. As of right now, less than 1million people on this earth is using Bitcoin. That's very very small.
why would they use Bitcoin? Why would they trust fishy exchangers without address, identity, phone number? how can you trust your money in an anonymous system which is mainly used for black market and speculators?
yes, 500,000-1 MIL real Bitcoin users but the PR(propaganda) makes the people to think that there are millions over millions.