Bitfinex is a shady exchange, so it wouldn't surprise me if they actually are manipulating the market as stated. One sure thing is that even in current times, certain entities are playing around with massive buy orders that they pull back very quickly. The largest order I have seen this week was a very short lasting buy wall of nearly 2000 BTC at +$10k levels. Not directly saying that it's Bitfinex itself, but one has to be very stupid to trust Bitfinex what that much value. It's the largest exchange based on their USD, or better said USDT volume, but they don't allow any US registrants.... Good thing however is that the market is more looking at GDAX when it comes the direction, and not so much Bitfinex anymore.