>I think the latest round of currency increases is mostly a function of people wanting to purchase goods, and needing to "bid up the price" in order to make their purchase. As vendors receive bitcoins, they usually immediately sell them to get back local currency.
But because retailers will only hold onto them for probably seconds, using BTC as a transfer medium won't significantly affect the price: average selling and buying will be the same.
The only way BTC can go up is if more people hold on to more of them (reducing the available money supply), which when they are rising happens more, causing a bubble.
