"This spurs occasional bubbles..." Actually, no. Bubbles have very clear and consistent price patterns which (so far) has not characterized any of the elevations in bitcoin price. One not mentioned in this chart is that for bubbles, the post-mania drop tends to be 2x faster than the rise, which has never been true for any of the bitcoin corrections. http://www.theeestory.com/files/price_bubble_chart.jpg It is certain…
http://imgur.com/D9rrl0g
Firstly the graph isn't logarithmic, which is important because popularity of viral phenomena is a locally exponential phenomenon, which is why there's a baseline drawn in the reference chart. Secondly the downward slope is steeper than the upward slope (usually by 2x).