Surely, I cannot disagree with accounting for Chinese exchanges, but if you are considering them as "the leaders" you are likely going to be "off," frequently, but do what you like, and surely people can take your analysis with a grain of salt, if they realize that you are looking at the "lead" matter in that kind of way.
You maybe right, but I've never regarded the US as much more than an idle observer when it comes to bitcoin volume. Technology-wise it's different of course since much, if not most of the developmental work is Western based.
In particular, the entire trading pattern of the last 2.5 years is largely characterised by the two 2013 spikes, one of which ostensibly originated in the Mediteranean Countries (April) and the other in China (December). Even when that bubble burst it co-incided with the Chinese authorities snap-regulating the fiat gateways in that country.
I think the rest of the world just got dragged along for the ride.
I don't really disagree with anything that you say, except for the fact that you seem to be talking too much in absolutes for my thinking - meaning all or nothing, which really can lead to conspiratorial (and simplistic) thinking (not that you are necessarily guilty of such, but there is quite a lot going on, especially in the mainstream press and also coming from a lot of the bitcoin naysayers and the bear trolls).
Bitcoin is a lot more subtle and nuanced than that, and of course there is some truth that there is manipulation and sure there is some truth that there is lead and follow, but price dynamics are also a series of feedback and credibility and questions regarding where something may have started and whether there is enough momentum in that place to really cause meaningful movement, whether we are talking about pumps or dumps or short term, medium term or longer term movements.
Chinese supposed "lead" is not happening in a vaccum.... Do you recall silk road arrests in about August/September 2013? Do you recall fed hearings that kind of ended up in pro-bitcoin outcomes in November 2013? Do you recall some admissions from Chinese insiders that a lot of the chinese volume was fake? Do you recognize that there is a large amount of world wide development in BTC related industries that is generally causing increased adoption and BTC trading going on all over the world (even reflected in local bitcoin activities and even reflected in blockchain.info wallets and various blockchain adoption statistics)?
Part of my point is that there is a lot going on in bitcoin besides how many supposed millions of coins that the Chinese are supposedly trading on their various fake and/or fee free bot-dominated exchanges that supposedly and frequently take up more than supposedly 80% of the world-wide trade volume and bitcoin activities.
I am not suggesting to completely discount the chinese BTC related activities or even to give the chinese activities less than 50% weight (I really don't know exactly how much weight to give anything because how much weight to give is going to vary from person to person, and how much weight to give is even going to vary within myself from time 1 to time 2 to time 3). I am just suggesting that any BTC price analysis and/or attempts at prediction should go much beyond becoming too much focused on the chinese exchange activities or attempting to measure the direction of the BTC wind by the tea leaves of chinese BTC exchanges.