I think that the 'whales' will remain making money until BTC get 1000$. The 'big players' are selling their crytos after small risings, this make fall the general prices, some small investors sell their cryptos, and when price have falled some %, big whales buy other time, and this is a bucle, however, the risings every time are minors, the prices of the cryptos every time are lower. The normal price of bitcoin should to be 1-10$ with an stability price, isn't normal that their price was 15.000$ some months ago, and isn't normal that in some days their value could fall 20%, while these things ocurre, cryptos will not used for the transactions of the day to day life.
That "speculation object" can't go to one direction to make money too.
I do not agree that crypto became a speculation object and only here to make money, I still believe in the project and there are more places that accept bitcoin as a payment compared to previous years so it is becoming one of the payment options people will have in the future (and even today in some places) but even with your logic the price can't just fall.
How would anyone make money if the resistance is too strong and price keeps falling and falling, shorting can give you only a set amount of profit if everyone keeps shorting and no one is buying, hence eventually even the manipulators and speculators will have to realize they might be whales but they need to increase the price after a while in order to profit.