Let me surprise you. Every altcoin is guilty of price manipulation at some point and base on what I read the major key player they use to achieve this manipulation is the exchange site that provides liquidity though XRP is a very very manipulated and scam project which didn't have any value/important to the crypto setting.
But dude you're not surprising me at all, and I'm pointing out that XRP is more of a manipulation mechanism than most other coins. I totally agree altcoins are 99% pump and dump (maybe even 99.9 since there are only maybe 10 good coins from 10000!).
Exchanges are the biggest culprits, agree. Bitfinex and Tether showed everyone else how to do this:)
It's a game of riding in the right time to compensate yourself, manipulations are everywhere and just like what you both are saying,
the chance or the percentages are far higher than anything. Early holders and those developers behind are the one who made things
to happened, they are good in pumping and dumping the project to make sure gaining higher profits!
In case of XRP, the lawsuit is really something that still hanging the fate of this project, though there are already lots of investors and
traders who left and withdraw their support, there are still people who continue to believe and hoping that the price will jump again
reaching the last time high or create a new one pointing to touch $5.