There are some countries where bitcoins are currently sold for $18 000 on informal markets, not on exchanges. If you can find someone to sell your bitcoins at that price, you will make a significant profit. I did some work in Zimbabwe a while ago, when the same thing was happening and I tried to sell some bitcoins for a much higher price than what it was on exchanges, but I only managed to make one trade and then thing fell flat.  

As I said, this is not via exchanges, but rather P2P trades.