It is just a pity, that the price are being manipulated at exchange levels, because it's not a true reflection of the "value" of the currency.
It's not clear that the current price is not a true reflection of the "value" at all. It's certainly not clear that the price is being manipulated.
What we can be sure of is that price action over the past two years has not corresponded closely with other metrics of growth. I fully expect that, in 2013, the price grew far more than other metrics. This is to be expected because the price does not capture the current situation so much as the expected future situation; the price can move wildly on an announcement from a powerful group where the other metrics all change pretty smoothly with time.
Most of the larger BTC transactions, are not going through these exchanges anyways. {Private & Localbitcoin etc.}
This is largely irrelevant. Relatively more trades happening off the exchanges likely reflect the reduced utility of said exchanges as government regulations begin to interfere with the market process. Such trades will probably be happening at a price level similar to exchange levels anyway; any significant, predictable deviation will be met with arbitrage.
