I've been wondering whether people benefiting from bitcoin stability (silk road?) mightn't have been manipulating exchange rates. This seems to be weak evidence in support of that (though I still wouldn't say it seems likely).
For what it's worth, Silk Road provided it's own system for guaranteeing stability of price (that is to say, there were guaranteed exchange rates if desired). I don't think there was any need for SR users (well, sellers at least) to manipulate the price for that reason.
