Overly simplified explanation: You have to have a buyer willing to purchase at that price. Lets say the exchanges set the price at 100k when 3 minutes ago it wa

Overly simplified explanation: You have to have a buyer willing to purchase at that price. Lets say the exchanges set the price at 100k when 3 minutes ago it was 15k. No one would buy. A lot of the market movement is caused by people setting fixed prices on their transactions. Eg: Sell 5 BTC at X Or buy 5 BTC at Y. If X or Y is never reached the transaction never takes place. Generally the exchanges just connect a buyer to a seller. You are not buying the exchanges coins but rather the coins of another individual/trader. The exchanges are just middle men facilitating the sale. The exchanges make money on a per transaction basis on fees. If the market grinds to a halt because there are no transactions the exchanges make no money. Now there are many possible reasons for the recent spike, some malignant such as potential pump n dump scheme or artificial inflation due to the upcoming futures exchanges and the desire to profit from shorting and some benign such as all the media attention and fear of missing out or just genuine belief in the potential of BTC as a currency or asset. No idea which reason is accurate, could be all of them or none.