Recently, it's become a concern that crypto whales can manipulate the market. Does this apply to altcoins only, or can these crypto whales manipulate all coins, including those with a higher market cap?
Market manipulation is an age-long practice that is done across various instruments including the currency market as well as commodities market. However, it is worst for altcoins market because it requires little amount of money to manipulate them due to their low liquidity. Most times, due to market manipulation of altcoins market, they end up destroying them because when they pump and dump, they hardly rise again because most of those altcoins have no utility and are mainly built on hypes. As soon as the hypes are gone, they dump so hard, never to rise again.
That's why small coins are risky to enter.
You either accept that risk or you move forward with bigger caps - they are less vulnerable to such machinations on MM's side.