It's important for this type of IEOS that the team and initial investors have vesting. That way they cannot sell their coins for at least a year or 2 years. That way the next investors are protected from big whales that just want to pump and dump and gives the project enough time to develop and grow.
I think whales participated in IEOs. With millions of dollars in sales achieved in just a few minutes or hours, I think most of the buyers are whales and I think this is only natural because everyone wants to make a profit. The prices of almost all tokens and coins are currently down and not limited to IEO tokens, so I don't think we need to worry as long as the project is still running and has active transactions on the market
Whales do not participate in IEO, that's my thinking because every Binance account can only contribute 200-500$, Whales participate in those projects after it is traded at exchanges. That's why the price of those projects is four to ten times higher than the IEO price, and then these whales dump slowly and get profit