How about this scenario for the next few weeks/ months. I got a little carried away and it becomes a little ridiculous towards the end.
1. The extraordinary developments in the bitcoin space that have occurred throughout the past months continue to accelerate. Large and reputed merchants will continue to adopt bitcoin and weekly we see major retailers join the club.
2. The accumulated good news of the past many months has generated enough interest in a few new players that they push the price up slowly to $600.
3. The vast numbers of bitcoiners, who are currently still uncertain and confused, buy back in - though coins are becoming rarer - and push the price to well above $680.
4. Bitcoiners are becoming excited - the mood has changed - we are breaking a six month high - the bubble is coming! - how could we have been so blind not to have forseen this after the paypal news? - hodlers hodle more tightly - shorts are closed and longs extended - many of the hundreds of thousand who understand bitcoin, but are only partially invested, add a fraction or a couple of bitcoins to their stash - the trenchant bears also gain sense and disappear from the forums but invest their pocket money in bitcoin.
5. The price breaks the ath. We all know what is coming next.
6. Millions - who heard about bitcoin during the last bubble, but were put off when the price collapsed and had their views further poisoned by the Gox unpleasantness and the China Fud - now are seeing a strong societal vindication of bitcoin, they begin to understand its potential and want in before the bubble completely explodes.
7. Bitcoin is a news sensation much larger than November's, as November's was from March's. It is pumped to such an extent that many sheep with a gambling bent, previously ignorant of bitcoin, want in before the price reaches $10,000 they can now do so as the infrastructure is available to allow them to enter more quickly and easily than in the previous bubbles. At this point the smart money stops buying and many start selling, providing the only liquidity available.
8. The price exceeds $5,000 and all the old-timers advise the hoards of newbies on the forums not to buy or sell out before the inevitable pop. Rpietilla has sold half his position and still the price is climbing, climbing $1000 a day. The newbies all think this is a new paradigm, there will be no collapse as Bitcoin has now achieved mainstream success and approval. They think the price will reach $20, $30, $40 thousand and then plateaux.
9. On a wintry day the price increases by $3000 in only a couple of hours and reaches beyond $10,000. Say goodbye to the quadruple digits guys! $50,000 by Christmas. Matthecat buys back in as does falllling and Veronica. Adam offers to buy everyone bottles of champagne. But wtf,
? Out of nowhere someone has market-sold 10,000 coins! What is this manipulation? Who would sell at these undervalued prices when we are obviously going to the moon? "I came back from walking the dog to find bitcoin has has dropped another $4,000", " f$&k this dude I am like so going to sell my 0.5 btc when it gets back to like $10,000". "Whattttt? The price price is now like $2,000! I am selling, bitcoin sucks and blows way too much for me dude!"
10. Rpeitilla and the rest of the old guard buy back. All the new comers expect an imminent rally but we reach nothing close to the old highs.
11. Tera and Matthecat return. Rpietilla, now rich beyond the wildest wet-dreams of Mammon, purchases an island in the West Indies which becomes a semi-atonomous Monero-based state - Monero off course being the number 2 crypto coin.
12. We experience another long bitcoin-winter where the price relentlessly falls, adoption continues apace, miracles of innovation and entrepreneurship around bitcoin are to read in the news daily, and everyone on the speculation forums are depressed and worried that Bitcoin that bitcoin may be moribund.
Ragnar