Quote from: superduh on February 14, 2013, 09:07:18 PM

what on earth is happening NOW.. why the crazy jump of 800% since about a year ago.. it's good.. but what seems to actually be driving the price up so fast lately..

This may help you start answering the question. Add in some speculative games by professional traders:

Quote from: lebing on February 14, 2013, 09:38:37 AM

I'm going to keep this thread updated with the most important fundamental reasons (not technical) which will in the long term, move the price. Hopefully over the long term this reduces the number of "OMG?! why is the price going X??" I will be limiting the updates I make to this thread to only those items which have the power to significantly affect adoption/ move the market. I'm sure I missed a few things, so feel free to post and remind me.

Reddit - http://blog.reddit.com/2013/02/new-gold-payment-options-bitcoin-and.html
TLDR - One of the largest sites on the internet is now accepting bitcoin for their premium service!

Bitpay - http://blog.bitpay.com/search?updated-max=2012-12-06T10:13:00-05:00&max-results=7
TLDR - Merchants are signing up in droves with Bitpay's (and other payment processors) payment system

Wordpress - http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/
TLDR - The largest blog network on the internet is now accepting bitcoins. This paves the way for wider, mainstream bitcoin adoption

Coinbase - http://blog.coinbase.com/post/42587245753/coinbase-is-now-selling-over-1m-usd-of-bitcoin-per
TLDR - It just got alot easier for users in the largest bitcoin market in the world (USA) to acquire bitcoins and it is showing up in the numbers.

SatoshiDice/gambling potential: http://calvinayre.com/2013/02/01/business/why-bitcoin-can-no-longer-be-ignored/
TLDR - While its not possible to gamble with dollars in the US, it is possible with bitcoins. The big players are starting to take notice of this fact and over the next few months its likely that we will see one emerge onto the scene

Blockchain: https://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-n-users?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

TLDL - The best online wallet is experiencing exponential growth of new users

As you can see, the new as of right now as of late is all good. If/when that changes, I will update this thread to reflect it.