I believe the difficulty has more of an effect on prices than most people realize. The majority of coins that trade on a daily basis come from miners cashing in, and that is pretty much the source of what little liquidity we have. While it is true that increased difficulty will not change the amount of coins found on a daily basis, it will shrink the amount found by the majority of miners, especially those using low-hash gear. Few people will cash in with 0.00004453 coins due to exchange fees. They will stack the coins until they have a larger sum to exchange, effectively draining liquidity.
I expect a slow but steady increase, lagging the difficulty spikes by a week or two.
Personally I think you have the speculators to thank for liquidity. I tend to keep what little mining profits I generate, and I know a lot of people that do the same. Of course the large miners who sell their BTC do help, but people with 50k+ USD trading on Mt.Gox grease the markets up far more.
Edit: The average bottom price seems to be rising by $20 every month or so. I think next month we'll see averages around 130-140. Only time will tell, though.
i couldnt agree more. with history as any type of indicator when the price stagnates it means its building support. when some big fish with a hudred grand buys in and makes it rise three or four bucks then others will pull the trigger as well then we will see that hughe jump...with a drop off but land some where in the mid thirtys and then buld and then land in the mid fortys or low fiftys. thats 150 to be clear. im thinking that this think is just about to take off. over the weekend this is going to get crazy...or maybe it will wate for tuesday after the holiday.