I did a little research, because mostly this price surge is argumented with DNM's getting in the currency, which i still do not believe.
On Alphabay in median 1,9% 2737 are accepting XMR in drugs and chemicals from total 136877.
On Oasis in median 6,9% 264 are accepting XMR in drugs and chemicals from total 3813.
The last 0,018 hype on polo had over 100k
BTC volume, with now residing somewhere at 0,014 with ~24k
BTC volume.
So if 3001 vendors are responsible for over 100k
BTC volume, every vendor in median had to have ~33
BTC for playing wiht XMR, now somewhat around ~8
BTC each
if every vendor is actively trading -->
possible but not likely.Why, simply because these 100
BTC to 800
BTC buy walls would to have been built, in median, buy more than one vendor at the same time -->
possible but not likely.
Even if, let's say 10% of the
active vendors are
actively trading with the new XMR (multiply the figures buy 10) which i still do not believe, this would be more unlikely to happen at the same time on the same place. The lending figures intensify my claim and theory of a single entity playing around and making the market to the contrary argument of "natural" growth

Think about it

That is completely disingenuous. Going from 0 to those numbers do absolutely mean something. I appreciate some statistics, but you gotta be less disingenuous in the way you handle the data. 2737 are accepting XMR. That is an increase of 2737! How many of the 136877 are active, or have been active within the last months? At the same time you ascribe ALL the volume to vendors trading. Dude. Come on.. Most if not all people in this thread are either speculators, holders, spectators or somewhere in between and have no connection to those DNM. We know with certainty that many in here are responsible for some of the volume.
That's not to say there's no big traders and attempt at manipulation happening, but come on..