So... at the present time, is there ANY market that can be regarded as a credible source for the market price of Bitcoins, free of price manipulation by bots, falsified trading figures, or failure to honor transactions by actually paying the customer?
What IS the real price of Bitcoin nowadays?
It is a community consensus that China does not exist, so it would be Bitstamp, I guess.
If you want to be a pariah in the community, just say "Huobi and/or OKCoin" and suggest that the other exchanges just follow them.
In any case, there is no such thing as "a price free of manipulation" for Bitcoin. Bitcoins pay no dividends, and there are no assets that could be auctioned to refund the holders if the concept collapsed; so there is no way to compute a "real value".
The market price - what *you* can buy and sell it for - is the only price there is. It does not matter whether the other party in your transactions is a penguin shepherd in Mongolia or a robot programmed by Skynet.
I suppose that one should exclude Mt.GOX; from what I read, one cannot actually buy or sell bitcoins there, only donate coins and cash to the owners.
That said, I too feel that the market price at the price-setting exchange (whichever it is) is "manipulated", even though I cannot define yet what the word means.