Chinese people buy in chinese exchanges and then western people who are already familiar with the bitcoin buy in example bitstamp. Normal western people are not yet interested (google trends) but when we break ATH they will be and then everybody just BUY BUY BUY =D
It's also possible everyone who wanted to learn about bitcoin already did that back in april, and when it does hit the media those people will be like "meh, again? I'm not falling for this again!".
Those people buy when we break $500 and then they sell at the next correction bottom.
this ... is exactly why most people will not touch bitcoin with a 10 foot pole... only a few suckers will do this, and btc will get a bad reputation- it is actually pretty bad already among the normal people...
ask anyone who is a CFO or accountant if they think any large business would want to use a currency that fluctuates by 50% in any given week, and has an ultra thin market.
Now you're hitting an entirely different subject with that last remark. I'm saying the bitcoin community underestimates how many people actually know about bitcoin. I think everyone who matters (people interested in technology, IT people, general investors,...) already learned about bitcoin back in april. Never mind the regular mom and pop investors, they wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole as this is an investment that lies outside of the banking scheme. For the regular mom and pop investors to come in, something truly revolutionary (or cataclysmic like a US default that has people searching for a safe haven) needs to happen. Another thing, look at the possibilities one has to invest in bitcoin. One needs to transfer money to an unregulated bitcoin exchange like Bitstamp or Gox. No way regular mom and pop investors would do that. But that's long term talk. Short term we need to look at companies and people like us (technofreaks) endorsing bitcoin.
I'm thinking you've got a rather polar viewpoint there. The world isn't split into two neat groups, one of which is geeks who know all about bitcoin and are already involved to the extent they will be and the other is 'mom and pop' who understand nothing and would not touch it.
Of the geeks who may well understand enough of the underlying technology to understand how it works many I suspect would not get involved, or not with much money for some time because they don't understand the economics or potential economics of it and don't know whether it is a fad that will fade with everybody who is left's money in it. This thing takes time to get to understand enough for an increase in confidence that it has at least a chance of going somewhere long term. And this increase in understanding/confidence takes time and the tendency and amount to get involved with it increases incrementally.
Of the mom and pops, I talk a fair bit about bitcoins to non-geeks who, as time goes by, as Silk Road doesn't crash it, as the 'last bubble' turns out not to have popped at all but just to have partially deflated for a while, are interested and may be more inclined to get involved - or to get more involved.
I am not saying some whales may just come along and take the heat out of this but they also risk being out-whaled. I'm not saying this growth or where we've got to today is sustainable nor that as a consequence of what I'm saying that it won't but I would not be surprised, with things having stayed relatively stable for some time, that we do some 'catch-up increase for some time before it becomes a frenzy proper. I'm actually hoping it won't and that some whales will at some point do their sacrificial selling to calm the buying down. Time alone will tell