Every buy and every sell order is going to influence the Bitcoin price. The larger the orders the large the price impact, that is why whales can definitely influence the price in their favour to a certain extent. This doesn't mean that decentralisation doesn't exit. Bitcoin is a decentralised network that doesn't rely on one main framework controlling everything. When you speak of the "whales" it sounds a bit like it's a group of people that all work together, this is obviously not the case. I think there is a difference between whales from North America, Asia or even Europe. They all are living in different currency regions and will trade on their own personal needs. In my opinion it's not only the whales, but also the HODL investors who are influencing the Bitcoin price heavily. Without the strong HODL community not giving into the selling pressure the price of Bitcoins would have dropped much lower than it did this year.