Imagine if Janet Yellen and the rest of the top brass at the Federal Reserve woke up this morning and suddenly grokked everything there is to know about bitcoin, and decided to buy up as much as they could. They would print up some small sum -- 5-10 billion or so, just pocket change for the Fed -- and buy as many bitcoins as they could. Imagine they could get a significant percentage of all bitcoins -- one million or maybe several million. Can you imagine the long term consequences? I seriously doubt that they would do something that ballsy and smart at the same time. But it would be an interesting scenario!
Sometimes (every second Friday) I think that the main objective of the US gov shutting down Silk Road actually was to get their hands on a large stash of Bitcoins without affecting the market price at all. They got around 130K coins out of that and they still might get several 100K more if they manage to beat the keys out of the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Also interesting to note is that this event was
immediately followed by a huge buying spree led by the Chinese - but do we really know whether Chinese individuals or the Chinese government? It might be a logical reaction to the US acquiring such a big stash. As would be their prolonged FUD campaign after the price rose too quickly.
Conspiracy theory stuff this, but well within the realm of possibility I think.