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Err... Exchange price reflects ...BTC price on that particular exchange. It is not meant to be a general indicator of Bitcoin's welfare. It tells you how much you would have to pay for coin there.
Just like the prices on the side of an ice cream truck tell you how much you 'd have to pay for an ice cream cone from that truck.
Not how good ice cream is.
Not what a fair price for ice cream is.
Not how much you should expect to pay tomorrow.
Just what you have to pay there, now.
The exchanges are for-profit companies. They exist to make money. They don't have to be your teachers or even your friends. The only recourse you have, if you think an exchange is not doing what it should, is not use the exchange.
NotLambChops: From time to time, your writing has indicated that you have the potential to be a fairly smart person (or bot); however, your above comment seems to attempt to purposefully minimize the role of the exchanges... maybe in an attempt to suggest that manipulation is NOT a problem and/or that all is well in the bitcoin space b/c it is following the "free market."
There are a lot of ways that people and/or bots (through people) can participate in the BTC market - and the activity and/or manipulations of exchanges can affect you, whether or NOT you directly participate on that exchange. Would anyone deny that GOX had an impact on BTC prices and/or reputation? Would anyone deny that the chinese exchanges influenced BTC prices and reputation in various ways? Maybe in the long run it all evens out, yet I get the sense that trajectories are established that change the course of history, and sometimes those trajectories go beyond some concept of an innocent "free market."
For example, Exchanges set the price for BTC overall because over the counter trades will use exchange prices, and also as we know there is arbitrage taking place between exchanges... and if some exchanges do NOT have trading fees, that affects volume... and if some exchanges are trading BTC that they do NOT actually have in their possession ( a form of fractional reserve), then that also could have considerable affects on BTC prices and/or the utility and/or reputation of BTC.
Lol, I'm not saying what an exchange should be, or denying that exchanges' behavior affects Bitcoin.
I'm just explaining what an unregulated exchange IS--a for-profit operation that owes you nothing above what you can take from it.
Which, without regulations, government intervention on your behalf, or a standing army of your own, is NOTHING.
It could be that some form of regulation could be a solution to cause accountability or there could be some voluntary codes of ethics or there could be some criminal sanctions when companies engage in fraud or other potentially deviant activity that steals from the others (if that is what is happening).
And, even if none of the above mechanism exists to keep them in check, there still could be mechanisms (even self imposed) that cause some businesses to follow greater ethics than others - for example they want to build credibility in order that people will put their money with them or they may be true believers in bitcoin and want to contribute to the bitcoin space.
I maintain my earlier point, however, if there are means to identify problems (such as manipulation, if it is taking place in ways that are outside of "acceptable" limits) and then to figure out the least intrusive ways to resolve such problems - sometimes that may mean that the best way is to establish some kind of an oversight body... that has teeth that will minimize and/or prevent the problems (if manipulation rises to such level to be deemed a problem).
