I am not sure 100% but it seems to me that if you have the funds and if things are being thinly traded, one can do things to the market that amplify the effect of your coins by exploiting psychological and predictable strategy and systemic weaknesses.

For example, what I was suggesting might be occurring, spending a lot to send the market down would be expensive and counterproductive while a quick strike to knock the market down would soon be countered by those ready to buy the dip. So the move would be to wait until just before people were (statistically) likely to do so then knock the price down again, damaging confidence and dampening any recovery.

Then, of course, we are all familiar with liquidating shorts and longs, fomo, weak hands. There also seems potential in timing things when people are otherwise occupied like at church or the beach/river or when various markets are sleeping. You don't have to be successful every time, just on average. Or maybe you're not even successful on average, you're just a whale wasting money trying to be clever.

Or maybe it's all confirmation bias