The extreme escalation in transaction times is there to ensure the whales can cash out but that smaller investors cannot.
Whales can make large transactions, the fees do not mean as much to them.
At the same time the small investors cannot cash out because their investment is quite small compared to the fees.
The result is the following:
- Whales are cashing out, converting to fiat
- Newbies are buying from the whales in the hope of continues increases
- Existing smaller investors do not want to sell now (despite possible large profits) because of the high fees is you only have a small investment (Today another bitcoiner on this forum has to pay a 20$ fee for a 50$ transaction).
When the whales have completed the sell-off, smaller bitcoin investors can finally begin to sell and that will be the trigger for a complete collapse in the price.
It is indeed true that whales are cashing out but it is not because they are not interested anymore to Bitcoin. Chances are high that it has to do with the season. Transactions are high which makes the demand low as well as the value of Bitcoin. But what to do is to hold rather than to do the same which is to also sell just because the market value is falling.