For me I don't think Whales alone are the one influencing the price, for me the prime suspect are the exchanges, alot of them gamble with investors money in the last bull run and are looking for ways to get their money back, another another school of thought says the institutional investors want to get into the market but at a fair price not 20K so they need to crash the market since they have the money
I also thought that to think about manipulating prices on certain exchanges to get money,but it was unfair if the exchange was cornered in the average value of crypto shares.The most important news that reports a drop or rise can also affect but still a group of daily traders will dominate the market.