I'm guessing it will keep going higher..maybe 5 figures before the next pause. Who knows. Bitcoin is market driven and thinly traded..an influx of even a relatively small amount drives it fiercely upwards. Gold is a different beast. Gold is in competition with the $ for the value role on central bank balance sheets. I don't know when that battle will get into full swing.

on coindesk it quotes the usum or what ever it is that sold the btc as saying it. so source is legit.

USMS only confirmed info that the bidders could have determined to a high probability if they started swapping stories.  Probably to head off "they didn't really sell em!"  conspiracy theories...

I wonder if any central banks/countries used a proxy to bid for the coins.

Speaking of feedback control theory, it's too bad Satoshi didn't have more experience in that area. If he'd ever tuned a PID controller, then maybe the difficulty formula would have included both a P and an I term.

Not that 8 minutes block intervals are necessarily a bad thing, of course.

Draper taking the bitcoin overseas sends a dual message.

1. More opportunity away from the US
2. he keeps them outside the jurisdiction of the US gov't

Or Bulgaria. In fact any number of countries with "weakening currencies".

Interesting that you mentioned Bulgaria, as I was just about to post an article about bank runs there.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/07/economist-explains

It seems that they have not actually been caused by economics, but by a shadowy campaign of scaremongering..
'But still.. people will fear, as they remember previous crashes and bank runs in the 90's

Sounds like Thiel, the founder of PayPal, 15 years ago. We know how that turned out.