I agree on this. Every one can control bitcoin to the extent on what is in their wallet address. When it comes to price manipulation, whales or bigholders have advantage on crashing bitcoin price but they will never have the power to manipulate it to upward trend since it needs a huge funding to do so.
The price being manipulated to the upper side is mostly done in groups of whales buying all together. It's not that one person is buying up the price to such a level where you can say it is a pump. That's what a lot people think.
The whales can only manipulate the price of bitcoin for the short term, maybe a few weeks. The bitcoin price is determined by the usage.
The entire market has been ruled by whales with iron fist from the very beginning. This will never change. So far usage has never been a real price mover.