Of course whales will not be able to control Bitcoins even though they have lots of Bitcoins, but it should be impossible for whales to hold lots of bitcoins up to 50% of the total in circulation because actually the one who really keeps the most Bitcoins is Satoshi himself who is the creator of Bitcoin.
What's more, Bitcoin is not a crypto asset that is centered on anything and in the Crypto industry, investors who store Bitcoin consist of many people spread all over the world, so it is impossible for Bitcoin to be influenced or controlled by a group of whales.
We should have been able to think that if bitcoin could be controlled, it wouldn't have been controlled and played with long ago, but in reality no one has been able to control it.
And it's also still pretty anonymous how many Bitcoins Satoshi Nakamoto owns, because as of now no one has been able to prove the number of holdings, I believe the Pope can play his part in the market, but not control the price as they see fit. If not, many companies holding Bitcoin are currently able to control the price of Bitcoin, another reason that strengthens Bitcoin cannot be controlled has been proven by governments trying to make Regulations, but their wishes failed and were unable to limit bitcoin.
Because the decentralized nature of Bitcoin makes many people unable to control its price, Bitcoin is influenced to rise or be corrected for a number of strong reasons and maybe a simpler one is called a supply and demand relationship, some others may also have a relationship that influences it even though it is not clear or definite.