It seems bitcoin was/is easily influenced by a few......
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/15/r...person-likely-drove-bitcoin-from-150-to-1000/
I've read a few similar theories about price manipulation. While I think there's probably some truth in them, in that price manipulation (both up and down) does occur, I think a lot of these theories that talk of extreme manipulation are just attention grabbers. It seems you need to purchase the paper mentioned in the article in order to read it .... take from that what you will.
Sure there are 'whales' in cryptocurrency trading who attempt to influence prices, sometimes using margin trading to place very large buy/sell orders, but that's also true of stock exchanges and other markets. Of course when a cryptocurrency is still young, it's easy for an individual or group of individuals to manipulate prices (commonly referred to as 'pumping and dumping'). And, while that does happen, it's not without risk. In the long term, as a cryptocurrency's trading grows in volume, it becomes more and more difficult to manipulate, unless you have very deep pockets. And even if fluctuations occur due to manipulation, FUD or whatever, ultimately supply and demand will regulate the price. Whether or not a price was pumped becomes irrelevant if supply and demand proves the price to be sustainable.
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