Bitcoin can be manipulated by the whales. But I think soon once it's already that high in market cap, those typical whales that are moving its market will have the difficulty to do the same thing that they've used to do.
These popular people can manipulate the market but I really think the time will come that everyone is man up and smart enough not to listen and panic with those words they speak.
it always manipulate by whales everytime,they will do to shake market to take opportunity in market as much as they can so generating profit will be easy for them. But although they trying manipulate market, crypto community recently understand about how the whales play so its not give huge impact in market.