Quote from: BTCtrader71 on November 04, 2015, 03:57:28 PM

One of the theories going around here is that Chinese speculators are looking for alternative investments after the lackluster performance of the Chinese stock market.

They always are looking for high-growth investments. A common type of trader is unmarried youngs. They have an unusual sentiment of "compensation", that sets their mental expectation high - they won't stop at winning a year's salary; they want to win a flat - roughly a lifetime's salary (a lot more expensive than an Australian house).

Let me explain the "compensation".

China pretty much works like a pyramid scheme. It's not a Chinese specialty - Greek does that too, except that they are in the ending phrase of a pyramid scheme. The pyramid scheme takes the profit from the youngsters and rewards the early players. In China it happened in the form of real-estate - for an average Chinese young man / woman, renting a very small apartment - single room and single bathroom with no space for a bathing tube - costs more than half of the salary for a good job. Those who bought additional property a decade ago enjoys rental income and high capital gain, many of them live in Australia as I see. For example, a friend of mine, new comer to Australia, cashed out his flat(!) in Beijing outskirt last year, with 1.5$m USD in hand, before he set out for Australia. Chinese buy house the first thing on their list, so the whole generation was enriched at the labour of their youngsters. (How dramatic it will be when the pyramid is de-based by one-child policy.)

It is only unfair, for the younger generation, who struggle to get a house to get married. China's recent development, like the skyscrapers in every block in Shanghai, are their work after all. Many young players in the market are in their denial. They believe that they should share the good fortune like their parents, only if they are given the opportunity - for some time this opportunity was the stock market, because real estate is too expensive and not growing fast enough. Human are risk-seeking when they protect their "rightful own" benefit, so they gamble. It doesn't make much difference how much do you have, as long as you don't have the million dollar for a place to house your wife. Hence the "compensation" is to win a house. Pity though, all these has nothing to do with decentralization and Bitcoin purchase transactions remain non-existant in China.

What I don't know, is if the risk-seeking stock market players and the current spike has a cause-and-effect relationship. That has to be supported by data. But if it is, Bitcoin market is going to be more frenzy than China's stock market, for there are no old players who look at fundamental and fear. It's a young-man-only market (and no young woman, because they are the party who demands the flat).