the reason is simple, whales playing with the market
this is why adoption is needed, having few people with 10k coins each , can only lead to volatility and manipulation
And they're definitely enjoying the game they made all by themselves. Put in a large amount of new players (or adopters), even the small fishes, then definitely this whales will feel to weak against several schools roaming around their once controlled ecosystem.
THEY influence the price! TPTB, the ones who have the stock markets high and gold/silver low!
the influence will keep on happening even if there are thousand of new adopters, because a whale actually didnt work alone but consist of a group of few whale, 10k coins + bot cant actually manipulate the price if you work alone, a group, then yes it can be easily manipulate
And dont forget the actual cause of the volatility will be that there isnt actually a demand yet for bitcoin, so instead of treating it like a stock which has some fixed value, people actually treat bitcoin to be a trading instrumental, because the volatility is great and trader love it
Yes. A whale or a group of whales can cause some serious ripples in the water, but not all whales move synchronized. The contrasting ideas and actions of two whales (or even different groups of whales) can again cause some serious disturbances in an ecosystem. There goes those weenie fishes swimming around, hoping to fit in this new kind of environment. A whale can drive the price down, yes, but if there is enough support coming from a multitude of small fishes, then the result should be somewhat minimal, as the forces of the multitude fishes opposes the power of one single Moby Dick. But what about group of whales? Well that is another question.
If bitcoin sees serious massive adoption, then these whales can have their forces decreased, but still they can affect the markets significantly. The different forces that affects the markets are somewhat complicated to understand--which makes it more interesting to see what's in store for bitcoin given that there are whales and fishes that swim around this ever-growing ecosystem.