Large financials could use their financial largesse to buy up large quantities of the supply of bitcoin in order to undermine it by creating volatility, manipulate its price or reduce bitcoin liquidity. Bitcoins divisibility helps to offset the liquidity aspect for quite a while I suppose.
What do others think? Could this potential threat be combated as bitcoin becomes more of a competitor to the major established financial entities?
This is really no different than what they do with the stock market on a daily basis.
If they succeed they get richer and if they fail we print more fiat money.