A pure chartist will tell you that based on the charts the true high value of btc is about $400, and that anything above that is ridiculous speculation. But if you look at all of the negative ancillary forces pressuring the CC, IMO it's true value is about $1000 and anything under that is a bargain.
Btc's biggest harm is being caused internally by hacker, scammers, bad cus svc, and lack of self-regulation. I think if you remove the hype, defamation, and increase market security the value will see $1200 again this year. But since the world loves it's scary, wild, and crazy rides my bet is hype and defamation will be the rule resulting in your $500 to $1400 cycles.
just look at it with inflows and outflows... that late fall runup was a perfect storm of China, SR going down & Coinbase allowing 10BTC instant payments.. and the climate still had USD $$$ flows into BTCe & Gox pretty easily
then what happened?? China got prudish.. Coinbase crimped instants by 90%.. AML/KYC enforced everywhere which slammed the door on BTCe & Gox while lots of merchants cropped up to take your bitcoins (Overstock/TigerDirect)
Anyone who thinks this has not been the driving factor of price is on the wrong side of the trade
Until there are 10x more Coinbases to bring back that level of instant inflow plus more exchanges that can take USD $$ without too much hassle then you can get $1000 again
I am not even sure Wall Street can prop up the price until the instant flows are back to last fall levels