A few months before the halving, whales can arrange a temporary drop in the price of Bitcoin so that weak hands of newcomers dump more and thus the whales can buy up potential cryptocurrency. Therefore, in the near future, I still assume a significant drop in the price of Bitcoin, but not for a long period.
There is no doubt that the whales usually manipulate the prices just for their own gains but I don't think they will be forcing it too much now since they have already been able to fill their bags at around $16k earlier last year unless they decide to take profits around $40k and then decide to buy more lower and start creating FUD and making weak retail investors sell their assets so that the market can take a dump and they can buy more at a lower price.
However, I don't see the price of Bitcoin going anywhere below $30k anymore since we are just a month away from the new year and once the new year starts, the market will probably enter the recovering mode from that point onwards, and the first couple of months will be crucial in that regard.