There's alot of whales but all of what they have in common is very wealthy people that do crypto and can controll the market because of worth billions of btc they have.
Apparently, you cannot be called a whale if you are not wealthy, because what you are doing normally is to use that wealth to amass more wealth by controlling the movement of the market at any point in time. Traders are more like subject to whales and every other smaller investor to their own fate based on how they perceive the future of the market.
Nevertheless, it is something that we cannot run away from in any market considering there would always be those who have a lot to drive the market they hold huge position in and that is what makes them the big fish and we the normal traders and smaller investors the mackerels.