The price increases when someone or some group buys all the sell orders then places a big wall. Then people rush in to place orders above that because they know the price will rise because it's a big wall. Then it repeats itself. This goes on for 3-5k price, then it takes a break while the people pushing the price accumulate coins at a more sane level. Then it increases again. This happened all day yesterday. I'm not saying it will happen again today, but that is the pattern.

Small buyers getting in are important, but they aren't driving the price. 2-3 BTC is quickly eaten up on either side. Then 10-20+ BTC come in to move the price. It really has nothing to do with the "community" thinking there's value in this coin beyond it's stats of low total coins, decent annual interest. That's pretty irrelevant. The same thing could be happening with any coin, except the flavor of the month is pure POS coins.

Edit: Oldest trick in the book is to pump the price around news to give people a reason to buy in at a higher price.

The price rise is a pump by big players, absolutely. The only question you have to ask yourself is this: How high they take it?

I'm not saying it'll crash back down to 8k when they're done. The price may stay high. But the meteoric rise will be over.

The same thing applies to every coin that has seen a large rise overnight. Don't take it personally. This has been happening for decades in the stock market.