When the network gets near hitting capacity of ~220,000 tx per day, the rally gets its head lopped off... coincidence?
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactionsAny future rally will be meaningfully constrained by this "safety feature".
That does not makes sense, since it would prevent bitcoins being send to the exchanges (which is of course not the case, since the fee will be set slightly higher to get access to the priority lane). The opposite would be true if your theory would be the case.
Most of the current bitcoin price is speculative value. That means that coins on the exchanges are only there to be sold, lent out, or used as leverage for margin trading. If no coins can get in or out, the only other way out is to SELL and withdraw fiat. Think MtGox only backwards. People are less likely to move coins to an exchange or ANYWHERE if the xaction fees go up significantly.
Also, we know this MMM ponzi will end badly, as all pyramid schemes do. If the current rally is based on that, then we can expect a retracement when the pozi collapses. That, coupled with the massive amount of margin longs relative to margin shorts, and there is a real possibility of a squeeze down into the $200-300 trafing range we've been stuck in for the last year.
There's almost no shorts to get squeezed. This rally likely won't go above the previous top if it isn't over already. Even if it does, we'll probably hit the xaction limit and reverse Gox will bring it back down.
But hey, honey badger don't give a shit and markets can stay irrational longer than leveraged traders can stay solvent, so go ahead and pump. I want to quintuple up my margin short anyway.