This is one of the problems of IOTA, just like Jinn or NXT. Too much marketing and worry for the price, instead for the real product and its application in the real world.
You shouldn't focus on the price or whales, you should focus just in the product.
It's totally okay that you haven't been following these projects, and it actually helps to provide an opportunity for community members to offer valuable information on the subject.
IOTA: The IOTA Foundation has refused to allow IOTA to be listed on public exchanges for nearly an entire year. They launched the public beta last July, and the community has been begging to be listed ever since last summer. A few whales who were hoping to quickly exit upon exchange listing squirmed for months, and finally begrudgingly sold OTC because they couldn't stand waiting for exchanges. This project was VERY clear from the beginning that they didn't want any "investors" involved, and that anyone who didn't want to actively engage in the project should not join. The devs have chosen to rigorously focus on development of the actual software in lieu of the typical ICO hype-mania garbage. So much so that any price speculation or trading talk has resulted in swift bans in the Slack and forum. They have all but actively discouraged anyone from buying IOTA. This is one of the many unbelievable strengths of this project and team.
Jinn: See above. Plus they literally took their website down, offered to buy Jinn tokens from anyone who didn't fully understand the project, and have been in stealth mode ever since. They have pretty much begged people not to invest, and even said after the initial Jinn crowdfund event that they regretted doing the crowdfund (would have rather kept it to private and VC style funding I guess).
No funding or efforts have been spent on marketing. No regard has been given to price whatsoever.
If these projects are too focused on price and not on product, I don't know what to tell you.