I think it is most likely a manipulation. I think this hash war deal happened but it shouldn't have affected the market this much. I think it happened and a lot of the price drops caused by the hash war going in between the Craig Wright and the bitmain dudes but afterwards when it dropped there was a lot of people who were scared that bitcoin is dropping and a lot of people who took advantage of this situation and bought a lot of shorts on bitmex to make even more money on the drop.

That way those people made money not only because they shorted but also because they did not spend too much money on dropping the price with manipulation since the hash war and panic sellers did that for them but they tried hard to keep it low. Right now there are a lot of rich people thanks to the price drop.