I see that e-gold peaked at $85 million, roughly where bitcoins are now. I wonder if that's some kind of cut off point where the authorities start freaking and taking whatever action they need to spoil the party.
I personally don't think that there is something special about 85 milllion. Probably it is just the point where it becomes "visible" to the government and starts affecting regular stuff bit by bit.
With Bitcoin such point might even be much higher, since a lot of Bitcoin adopters prefer to keep Bitcoins rather than spend them.