The rise of bitcoin is textbook supply and demand. Since supply is fixed and more and more institutional investors and end-users are adopting bitcoin, the price has surged.The positive feedback loop with bitcoin appears to be getting stronger over time as adoption increases. The theoretical justification for this is known as Metcalfe's Law.With much of the world's population under the thumb of authoritarian governments, demand for bitcoin will only grow.With commodities like oil, when prices rise, producers can increase production and therefore increase supply. This causes their prices to revert to the mean. This effect is absent in bitcoin.