I am confused

1. Flat - does that mean the # of transactions?
These are steadily increasing as more merchants sign up, and the hashrate increases.

2. Flat - does that mean the price of btc?

You must see past the attempts at manipulation.

2.1 Do you want to discuss the Bearwhale's sale?

Only an experienced trader would have accumulated 30k btc

If the intent was to cash out and gets as much money as possible, an experienced trader would know better than to put that kind of sell order. Bearwhale took a deliberate (and mis-calculated) risk to destroy the price, perhaps for a political purpose (i.e. they are afraid of it), or perhaps in an effort to buy it back at a lower price, (i.e. they believe in its long term value). Maybe (s)he will try again, perhaps not so obviously, but this sale was not an experienced trader's need to cash out immediately.

2.2 Various govts/central banks issue comments
Look at China's PBOC announcements at the macro level, over several months
Negative comments: price drops
Positive: price rises
The Chinese govt must be aware of its own effect on the price.

These attempts at manipulation shake down investors who (unwisely) invested in bitcoin money they could not afford to lose.

These attempts at manipulation do not affect the network.

These attempts at manipulation do not affect the merchants, more and more of whom are now saving money on interchange fees by using bitcoin. The price changes are absorbed by the 3rd party processors (coinbase, bitpay, etc).