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Comment by SlipperySlope | Hacker News Reader

Has any other bitcoin news media event happened in the last few hours? Not the pizza deal because that is somewhat old news - but this HN post? The price jumped up from 24.5 to 25.5 and I don't see any other trigger!

Back in 2011, I learned about bitcoin mining from HN and solved two blocks myself with a CPU miner. Those coins are worth several thousands of USD today. Thank you HN ...

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One theory is the increase in online gambling sites who use bitcoin. Gamblers are buying it up.

I don't think there's any truth to this theory. As far as poker, they're mostly all poorly designed and have no traffic. Maybe a straight-up casino site would be better where you don't need people to play against and you don't care about user interface. But I think the whole "drugs, gambling, hookers" element of BTC is just FUD.

However, I think a ton of people are gambling on bitcoin itself. I've read that many investors say they've tried their hand at bitcoin. It makes sense. The market dynamics can't be much different than forex and are probably a fun experiment. But for serious traders I doubt they could wage big enough bets on BTC without driving up or down prices on themselves.

Ah, I see that the BBC reported this story in last few hours too.

A shop charging 20% to shop for you is not the bitcoin break through that would change the rate within hours. Look at the trade volume in $$. It increased faster than the exchange rate, so my guess is that speculators parted from their coins too fast and the rally will continue for some time and has nothing to do with very recent events. I consider all this the aftermath of the reward split, wordpress.com and the slowly materializing ASICS.

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