Is someone trying to kill bitcoin?
There are really only two things driving the increase in price you are talking about.


Supply and Demand
Greed and Fear


Supply and demand is simple, there is a virtuous cycle at work here:


Increasing demand drives price increase due to limited supply
Increasing price drives increasing demand as knowledge spreads in the media
Repeat


Greed and Fear are basic human emotions, but the interesting thing is that the Greed and Fear is a community measure not an individuals, this can be considered as the "wisdom" of the crowd.


Large price increases increases greed
Increasing greed increases prices
Decreasing prices increases fear
Increasing fear decreases prices


When you boil it down to just these things and nothing else (such as cost of mining) you have something like a measure of the psychology involved in these simple concepts applied to the crowd rather than the individual.