I'm an economically minded noob. What does the market cap mean for me and the value of the bitcoin I hold personally? How is it a good thing? Will it increase adoption, value, distribution? Can it answer some of the questions I outlined here in the following thread? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1489137.new#new
Im not like you in 100% cjmoles " economically minded noob " (but you made me laugh buddy 
) but i still dont know too what actually market cap means.
Anyone up to help me understand it?
bitcoins that exists * value of bitcoins
(value can be dollars or shekel or grandpa cookies, w/e)
How is the value calculated if each exchange has his own rate and sometimes there is a big gap between them? Usually Huobi is $20 ahead of btc-e
That could be volume weighted average. But you have to exclude lots of volumes in the Chinese exchanges.
The trading volume in China is useless as the trading fee is 0%. The volume can be artificially high there.
That is right. So when I calculate the volumes, I will not count the volumes in the Chinese exchanges.
!