While I love Matt's column and read it often I think there is a third possibility. "Real" (as in do it for their day job) foreign exchange traders looked at it and said, "Gee, there are all these tricks we get slapped for if we trying them on manipulating exchange rates, but these noobs either don't know about them or don't care, let's see how high we can push this thing..."

Watching the BitCoin saga from Mt Gox to today has often felt like watching a financial crimes historical reenactment society having an annual get together.