are the new capital controls really so draconian that this rally can continue? What happens if/when the Chinese government steps in and cracks down, like they did in December13/January14? Is there any solid Western demand, or is China the only source of major demand as in Nov13?
I don't really think it is the capital controls that's driving it. It's a whole mix of stuff. More than anything, if you just look back at the history of bitcoin valuation, it's basically doing the bitcoin "thang".....big rise, collapse, retrace to 20% of the last rise, wait a long time for the price to get fully compacted, then another big rise and price in the new fundamentals.
Things like the Eu ruling and the Chinese devaluation are just the sparks that light the tinder. The reason I think that is because there have been so many 'sparks' during the last 2 years - everything from Overstock to ETF rumours and bitcoin didn't do anything. On the other hand, I've got massive deja vu right now from 2013 and the jump up to 266 in April of that year. That was Cyprus according to everyone but actuall what happened is that it was ripe for a rise. Then it compressed around $70-$90 for months till Christmas before taking off again.
I think it's just the growth pattern. Fundamentals grow and get priced in in jumps, not linearly.
It's very very similar to Nov 2013 except in this early stage we've jumped up $100 in 3 days.
If you put Bitwisdom's Bitstamp chart on 3Days and scroll all the way back and look at that run up to the ATH, prices were going up as follows:
Nov 2 - 4 $201 -> $232
Nov 5 - 7 $227 -> $300
Nov 8 - 10 $266 -> $363
Nov 11 - 13 $316 -> $401
Nov 14 - 16 $384 -> $448
Nov 17 - 19 $376 -> $754
Nov 20 - 22 $442 -> $801
Nov 23 - 25 $749 -> $875
Nov 26 - 28 $804 -> $1048
Nov 29 - Dec 1 $799 -> $1163
Given it's powering even harder than what we saw back then it won't surprise me at all if the bubble is ten times the previous one. We could easily see $10K BTC this time.