The 'final crash' idea is a new one to me and I would like to think it won't happen. But:
If the big banks and central banks realise bitcoin is going to happen whether they like it or not;
If some of the world's wealthiest are beginning to put serious money into bitcoin both increasing its value and devaluing the fiat they're taking it out of;
If they are realising that it's game over for the fiat game as has been played for the best part of the last 100 years;
If they know they currently, but if they're not careful temporarily, have more buying power than anybody else;
...why they would not deliberately pump, forcing everybody out of fiat only to then diversify into pms and other assets at the top, deliberately dumping bitcoin to promote their new fiat currencies? It will be their last chance to keep as much of their advantage (in terms of relative wealth) because the days of 'magicing' money into existence will be over.
Imagine if Janet Yellen and the rest of the top brass at the Federal Reserve woke up this morning and suddenly grokked everything there is to know about bitcoin, and decided to buy up as much as they could. They would print up some small sum -- 5-10 billion or so, just pocket change for the Fed -- and buy as many bitcoins as they could. Imagine they could get a significant percentage of all bitcoins -- one million or maybe several million. Can you imagine the long term consequences? I seriously doubt that they would do something that ballsy and smart at the same time. But it would be an interesting scenario!
yes there are plenty of people with enough money to do this, and whilst they may push the price sky high, so it costs more to buy, all they are doing is increasing the market-cap-value of everything they already own (i.e. bought for less than the current price). If their intention is not to sell it but to own a big chunk of coin, then there is only so much selling everyone else can do at the higher prices, because FOMO keeps them from selling all, but damn they just have to cash something out....
For a player with enough cash to buy the entire order book 100 times over, its possible. The FED prints $85bn a month.... that we know of
It's in their interest to keep accumulating, to keep the price up (and thus the perceived value of their holding) and to continue to legitimise BTC as the new money in the eyes of the world. All the while devaluing the actual worth of the dollars they just put in everyone's pockets! When you are rich enough that you don't measure wealth in absolute terms, but in terms of what percentage of *all the money* is yours. This is a legit strategy.
Now, if somebody (or bodies) were doing this, then its likely that when they were buying the price would increase exponentially, until the natural (non whale actor) buying pressure represents a very small fraction of the natural selling pressure (everyone else cashing out their gains) at which point the whale can pull their buying, and allow the market itself to drive the price way back down again (perhaps assuring this buy selling a chunk at the 'top' to instigate the collapse) the market participants will do the rest.
When natural buying/selling returns to equilibrium, the cycle can repeat.
This sounds familiar.