Here is the thing that I find shocking... the Bitcoin economy is $5 million or something, right? (per bitcoinwatch.com, I'm using an assumption of parity for simplicity)

If you look at the volume of trades that have been swinging the market 10 cents at a time, they are nowhere close to any meaningful fraction $5 million.  At best, they are $10k-$15k USD.  Each 10 cent change in the price supposedly changes the value of the whole Bitcoin economy by over $500k USD...

which leads me to believe that something's just not right.  There is a huge disparity here.  Someone should not be able to create or destroy $500k worth of "wealth" by moving only $15k.  That is as unrealistic as throwing $15 worth of coins in a mall fountain surrounded by a hall of mirrors, and then believing the illusion that suddenly there is now $500 under the water.  The money is just not there.  Can anyone even buy 1 million BTC on MtGox right now?  How about even 100kBTC?  As soon as you take the $15 out of the mirrored fountain, the entire illusion disappears.

Is the BTC economy really worth $5 million?  How did it get that way?  Seems to me, three or four big buy transactions around $15k each, and the rest is pure hot air.

What seems to me to be happening, is that at best, only a couple percent of the whole volume of coins is actually even participating in the market.  There is a very artificial scarcity right now, probably while everyone who got BTC for pennies is waiting for them to become $100 bills... artificial scarcity which creates high prices, but not any real value.

The risk that goes along with that, is that even if BTC became worth $50 each, if that value is established by a small chunk of change with only 1 or 2% of the coins, the value is largely hollow.  Only 1-2% of the holders of BTC would be able to cash it out and get anything.  The remaining 98-99% would not get even a fighting chance at a piece of the pie, except perhaps unless they were the first to cash out.  For the value to be real, the Bitcoin economy will need a huge influx of goods, services, or at least capitalization that actually represents most of the BTC out there.