You should move this to the speculations thread, here :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=57.0 because most of the responses will be pure speculation. You have to see this in the bigger context to understand what happened. China, one of the biggest users of bitcoins had a bit of a wake up call from their government. The Bitcoin exchanges had a visit from the government, when their government realized that citizens might be using bitcoin for capital flight.
They had to protect their fiat currency, so they decided to scare people away from Bitcoin, by initiating a visit to the place where most transactions in Bitcoin are done. The people panicked and they started to sell their bitcoins, in fear that these exchanges might be closed or that their coins might be confiscated. < Just one more reason why we need decentralized exchanges >
This will hopefully go away without hiccups, if these government officials find everything in order. If they are not in order, then people would have to find other ways to deal in bitcoins directly.