Of course the market was manipulated. Whether it was by government, wall st or just some early adopters or scammers propping up the price before cashing out we'll probably never know. It's probably got a few more days/weeks before it starts to stabilize, probably back below where we were before all this madness began this year.

Hopefully this will at least make people stop trying to tie the success of bitcoin to the price. Newsflash: Bitcoin is better with a billion transactions per day at 10 $USD than a few thousand @ $250