On the other hand, given how much effort is going into promoting bitcoins I wouldn't be surprised if some folks are just trading them with themselves in order to pump up the numbers.

Anyway, if people have gone from "ehh, I'll stick twenty bucks in just to see what happens" to "I'm gonna buy eighty-one thousand dollars worth of these things!" then it confirms my suspicion that the world is about to run out of bigger fools to sell 'em to.