If I'm being honest, I really am not "surprised" as much as I am excited, relieved and feeling determined as ever knowing that we are on path to what has been envisioned since the beginning of bitcoin. I do hope that traders lighten their load on the blockchain, or something could happen within development I suppose, so that Satoshi's original idea of Casual transactions can again take place. We are sort of in a run-away phase right now where people are hyperactive and overly excited. It's best to just hold out hats for now and not count any chickens before they hatch!

I expected bitcoin to explode, then explode again, and again until it's finally got the market-cap, transactions and value that it has the potential to reach. I have no "expected" rate for bitcoin, because it's a volatile creature, all I know is that it comes in spikes and waves. It has the best upward trend I've ever seen, but it's significant movement normally happens within moments and it is certainly powerful. I just stand out of the way and let it do it's thing, i don't want to put any chains on bitcoin by expecting it to do anything; I'm just happy we let it out of it's cage to see what it is capable of.