1. When no whale is supporting the volume and price by manipulating with his tokens, then the price will decline and thus a whale will be able to accumulate low and then begin manipulating. So preventing manipulation is really difficult. Monero seems to have been able to do it, by selling "holier than thou" Jim Jones koolaid locking their supporters into a perpetually underperforming token but most other tokens aren't able to achieve this Zen masochism.
You're saying Monero avoids manipulation because the supporters think their coin is the best? I'm honestly trying to understand where you're coming from.
If Monero has prevented any manipulation in the markets (I'm not convinced it has), it probably has more to do with the lack of premine or ICO that would give a single party the resources to do it. In XMR's case, the manipulator would have to play with his own money.
Agreed, and also I am thinking the price did not drop enough to incentivize a manipulator to accumulate very cheaply. And also any manipulator knows he will be up against very savvy, hawk-eyed traders who will take advantage of him.
So my (naive, non-expert) guess is no whale manipulator of XMR.
My "holier than thou" point is only that I think there is a lot of idealogical desire to hold XMR despite the the lack of TO DA MOON performance.
I am becoming much more pragmatic (results talk, BS walks, discard the underperforming), and not just about this aspect, I mean everything (and not just CC either, I really mean everything in my life). No pain, no gain, but results required, e.g. 3 hours in the gym, but I can feel and see the results.
Don't expect much results from foruming. The less said with more incision, the more effective.