The price is steadily going up everyday, we have seen this kind of phenomena in a bullish cycle. The price gains might be slow though, and others call this a mini bull run. But this could be the start of a big run in the coming months, specially as we approach the bitcoin block halving event in May.
A bull trap - depending on whose side you're viewing the market from, the past few days are the evidence of subtle market manipulation to get people going in for long positions and risk having their positions liquidated against their will as the BTC market plunged from $10,341.56 USD
$9,874.43 USD heaping a massive 3% loss in just a day. Lots of positions were liquidated and the market makers + exchanges + those who could read the signs (a very minute fraction) took heavy bags home.