Anyone got ideas on why this is happening again? Sure the situation might seem similar but the reasons behind them seem suspicious.
There's a premium on Chinese exchanges, suggesting that China is driving this.
This article has some ideas about what China's up to, but it doesn't mention a relaxation of exchange controls (people can once again deposit CNY direct from their bank to a Chinese exchange). The Chinese exchanges are extremely keen to emphasise that none of this is due to people evading capital controls, which makes me think that it is very important to Chinese exchanges that they not be seen to be helping people evade capital controls...!
I have no idea how high the current run will go. I can see two possible scenarios - (1) it continues into next year, as halving approaches, and we see prices that are orders of magnitude higher than we're used to, before crashing, or (2) in the next month or two there's a crash, before another run up prior to the halving. There are other possibilities, of course, but with peoples' expectations around the halving I think demand will stay high.