dafuq is going on. i never understand these pumps. i love them and its exciting but i'm baffled as to why volume is way up when price miles higher than it was a short time ago.
are there really that many people who see it sitting at 250 for like 18 months who suddenly decide to buy when it's 600+?
No - there aren't but you've got to remember that only a minority are buy to hold.
Most markets are driven by traders constantly cashing out and in. The same people that were in the market at $300 won't be those same participants at another price. Some people are maximising fiat, others are maximising BTC. If you're a "fiat accumulator" then you cash out at every small top and back in at the dips. So the volume is from the same traders entering and exiting again and again.
Many will have joined at $300 and exited at $350 for example. Thousands of others in at $500 and out at $600 and everything in between.
You also can't tell who's gaining and who's losing because a fiat accumulator will take one side of the trade and a BTC accumulator the other side of the trade where one trader measures their gains in fiat and doesn't care how much bitcoin they hold, the other in bitcoin and doesn't care how much fiat they hold.