Unsure, hence the question. I do know the banksters are ruthless and they've done it before with silver which has been suppressed for many decades (and still is). But silvers paper market is many multiples the nonpaper market (more than 100x). If bitcoins futures market gets bigger relative to spot market, then perhaps it could suffer the same fate. Hoping it doesn't get to that stage though.
It theoretically can; but like what Wind_FURY said, it can go both ways. I'm definitely not buying that it will have the same fate though. I'd imagine that they'd be FAR more wary of shorting bitcoin in longer time frames simply due to the fact that bitcoin has been notorious of large upward price spikes. I'd imagine that if huge entities would short bitcoin, it would only be through using FUD in far shorter time frames.