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My hunch is that "manipulation" exists to the extent that it pushes the technicals that are most likely over the edge. E.g. if the indicators say sell-off or rally due, there's some twats paying off mass media and cooking the books to push us over the edge. I don't see them actually shifting anything in a direction that wouldn't naturally be possible. Craig for example always seems to announce his horseshit when a market move is due anyways, and then tries to take credit for that. Anything other than that could (and thus probably would) lead whales to cuck each other out of their coins and fiat.
Exactly! But you said it way better than I ever could
Yep agreed. It's all trading based almost purely on technicals, and all the algo bots react accordingly. But because the market is so thin, the whales can control the technicals to some extent. The market is being shorted and pushed down right now to stay in a bear market, to keep a rally from happening prematurely based on technicals. Until they want it to, again.
Average Joe retail participation has always been extremely low in the Bitcoin market, probably not more that like 5% of the total buying/selling activity. Certainly not even close to what either pushes up the market massively, or sells down the market massively. That's why it is so cringey to me to hear people say things like "People are massively FOMO buying!!" during bull runs, or "People are massively selling!!" during bear markets. No, "people" aren't. Neither price moves have anything to do with the <5% of Average Joes retail participation.... not even close.