Yeah, just had a long talk with a high level friend about the economy while I was overpaying him (imo) for a 5L astral, I'm now broke btw.
People are very clearly exploiting the inflation by hoarding exalteds and trying to adjust the market thusly. Influx of chaos, making it justifiable to say they are worth less, well everyone still accepts that everything in comparison to chaos are worth the same (ie. 1 chaos = 1 regret, 2 alchs = 1 chaos, etc), with the only thing going up being exalted.
Manage to haggle him down to approximately 17 chaos per exalt, which is a joke because there is no way regrets are the same price as chaos anymore, so even though I was getting a fair rate I still paid 30 of those chaos in regrets.
Oh well, I've got some items that are appreciating and now I have a 5L astral that I get to roll, forever.