Maybe I'm going to look back in one year from now (or even 6 months)
I really like this chart.
I think that the chart depicts historical aspects of BTC prices that constitutes, more or less, a more than 8X increase per year over the almost 4 year period; however, most of that growth occurred in 2011 - accordingly, the growth seems to be skewed towards 2011. In this regard, there seem to exist decreasing intensities in the magnitude of each of the BTC bubbles, and maybe the increased BTC prices have made difficulties in having continued bubbles of 8x or greater?
NONETHELESS, if another major bubble of 8x or more were to occur, then these previous price increases will merely be part of the description of an ongoing pattern.
Personally, I am torn about what to believe, yet I am somewhat skeptical that continued bubbles of 8x or more is sustainable, even though I do believe that it is possible to have a few more 8x or greater bubbles in the coming years.
The chart above shows both bursts and drops, and the price bursts occurred:
early 2011 = 5x
mid 2011 = 41x
late 2011 = 3x
2012 = 3x
early 2013 = 18x
late 2013 = 9x
So far 2014, has been mostly downward, with a bit of gradual upward momentum in the last two months; however, it seems that we are still waiting to see what is going to happen in the remainder of 2014 in order to characterize BTC prices for this year and to prognosticate the direction of BTC.
Surely, it does seem possible that BTC prices will remain more or less flat for the remainder of 2014; however, given the intensity of continued ongoing good news, various multimillion dollar investments into BTC, the appearance that several wall-street interests are looking into BTC investments, government regulations that are tolerable towards ongoing BTC growth, efforts to establish more user-friendly applications, greater BTC adoption and awareness and continued opportunities for liquidity, it is seeming less and less probable that BTC prices can be kept down for the remainder of 2014, absent some catastrophic negative BTC event. Also, it seems that if BTC prices go past $850 or so in the next 6 months, then inevitably, BTC prices are going to spurt into a new ATH, in the range of $2,500 to $5,000.