You have got this picture wrong.

I know it sounds plausible but it's wrong.

For a start, masternodes are not buying. They receive coins straight from the chain and don't have to "pay" for them. It's not a small amount, it's HALF the entire supply. When the protocol allows this to happen it has an effect on price. I realise that individual investors may not care whether the coin was hashed out of the chain or not, but it has an aggregate effect which can be measured if you're forced to account for it (as I was when I started accounting for everything on tax returns). That's when I realised how toxic this practice was to the price over a long period of time.

Sure we'll get pulled along by the tide for a while, but that isn't the same thing as having a competitive advantage.