This is a wildly speculative subject and because nobody has proof of anything, it is always going to be 'conspirative' one way or another.  I believe there is manipulation, there is manipulation in ALL markets.  Big players will always look for ways to further enrich themselves.  But in my opinion, the manipulation we see today is little to nothing compared to what the future holds for us when banks will find themselves in the middle of the game.  When banks and governments are in, expect the wildest of the wild.

I believe most of the 2010 investors now hold little to nothing.  A person must be really lucky if they mined or purchased Bitcoin in 2010 and earned even half a million off of it.  Most of them sold when the price already seemed incredibly high.

Imagine you bought a shit coin today for 100 dollar and within months it turns into 10 thousand.  You would likely sell most of it.  You would likely never expect it to become a hundred thousand, let alone a million.