Whales don't control the market, they influence people with news and rumors.
sometimes, they can control the market by the increase and decrease the price. we can see this is happening over and over. the whales have their ability to play with the price because they a lot of money to move the price. but they cannot always play with the price because once people move in the market, they cannot play again and they will follow with the market. and yes, the whales are always taken our money because they can easy to make people become panic and we should not follow the people which is panic and we need to stay calm for a while.
Its hard to prove that bitcoin price fluctuation is because whales action. But i do believe, price can be controlled if we have large capital and whales have it. Whales have large capital and can make peoples in market panic with spreading false rumours.