600$ in 2016 will probably make sense specially because of the halving happening around then. But I was surprised of the recent rise right now. Does the article describe why the rise in November ?
Two theories abound.
But first, the fact of the matter is that the price action is being driven by action on the CNY exchanges. Western exchanges sell off hard, but China keeps on buying. Even now, after that brutal correction on USD exchanges, China is some $60 beyond the USD exchange price (I would have surely thought that someone somewhere would be in the position to arbitrage such a massive gap).
There are two theories as to why the buying pressure from China is so unrelenting.
1) Investors disenchanted with the stock markets, are moving towards Bitcoin, and also using Bitcoin as a way of getting their wealth out of CNY, which 'protects' them from any further government devaluations of their currency and also allows them to easily circumnavigate stringent Chinese capital controls.
2) Some Russian conman is operating a Ponzi scheme offering 20% per month interest payments, for which he requires payment in Bitcoin (to enter into the scheme).
The likelihood is, that Bitcoin is being subject to yet more carefully and centraly orchestrated pumping and dumping. Market cap is still very small, and with the memories of the astronomical gains of past Bull runs (all of them fraudulent to some degree imo), I think that Bitcoin is a market where people might be persuaded to take leave of their senses and their ideas about how markets (normally) function. Question is, how high can the next manipulated bull run go? If I were a venture capitalist cowboy market manipulator, I would imagine that Bitcoin could be easily ramped to around $2000, before I took a great big dirty dump on the market and left the unsuspecting stampeding proles holding the bag.
Question is, is this the start of a new mega-pump?
With an undisputed bottom having been reached, and a period of excruciating trending in $200 range behind us, I think it could well be. Like I said, if I was a pump n dumper, why leave it at $500 when you know that Bitcoin rising up and taking out it's ATH of $1200 is in many investors heads, simply a matter of time? A matter of when, not if?