I have seen people suspect whales of teaming up to manipulate the price quite frequently this year, yet no one has actually backed up these claims.
Whales are just like you and me investors/traders/believers, but then with much deeper pockets. Are you and me teaming up to manipulate the price? I don't even know you. The same applies to whales. We are all trading against each other because we all have a different strategy. I'm pretty sure that when we pumped from $7300 to $10,300 some weeks ago it crushed a lot of whales too.
In fact, it's much easier for small fishes to enter and exit than whales because there is not enough liquidity for them to sell into, which means that whales market selling in panic lose big time due to slippage.