what is whale

[Barabulya]

In my opinion, whales are  exchanges. And they have become property of bankers. In their hands, exchanges are a strong and dangerous tool.

[AntoCokbun]

whales are people who have great assets in a coin and if he does activities such as buying or selling it will greatly affect the market, like a pump or dump.

[Fairy_90]

If you look at any market, you will know that there are many different players. Some of these are called "whales". Perhaps the image in your mind about a whale is based on a cartoon character from Disney; a large, slow but lovely creature with very soft personality traits. But the reality is very different. These whales are incredibly smart hunters, sometimes hunting in flocks. Some small fish hunting whales or seals, using smart hunting tactics to carry. So when whales join digital play, you should be careful.

[suburban123]

The collapse of bitcoin twice from 20,000 is the first sign of a great whale game. The actions of whales can not be easily predicted. They have their own game, and it will not work out after them - when everyone will sell they buy, and vice versa.
At times I'm wondering what to watch first ... for whales or for events in the crypto world?

[erickkyut]

what is whale and why they can manipulate the market and how did they do it? I'm curious about that.

whale is the term given to a holder of huge amount of coins. They can manipulate the market because once they sell the coin specially if large amount of it, the price will suddenly drops. If the price dropped, they can acquire more of that coin on a cheaper price. That is how the whales control the price in the market.

[sharkpc2000]

Investors who have a lot of money. Also, new altcoins can be manipulated due to a very small capitalization

[monkeyking03]

Whale they are the one who own a lot of coins,they are the holders of a coin with a high volume thats why they are the one also can control the price of the coins.

[joelembiid]

A whale is someone with a large amount of funds (something funds of a specific project) who can, by sheer volume, manipulate the market by initiating pumps, or dumps.

Absolutely agree. Best example of this is John McAfee. He is manipulating too much and is displaying it publicly. Whales always thinks of himself.

[defoman]

what is whale and why they can manipulate the market and how did they do it? I'm curious about that.

The term "whale" is used to describe large holders of currency, it can be, as one person, and a whole group of people. Below I will give an example of options for manipulating the market.

Rinse and Repeat

    Bitcoin Whales and How They Make Market WavesThere are many trading maneuvers whales use to profit, like using a trading tactic commonly called the ’rinse and repeat cycle.’ The rinse trade is used in many types of markets and can be effective if timed correctly and very profitable if you are a bitcoin whale. The trader with a lot of holdings starts selling bitcoins lower than the market rate which at times can cause a panic sell off by small-time traders. The trick is the whale sold just below the current market value and just enough to watch panic ensue. Then the whale waits and watches the panic selling take place until the bitcoin price reaches a new low. At this point, the whales quickly scoop up way more bitcoins than they first started with and after the ‘rinse’ they usually ‘repeat’ this type of trade often. People speculate that there are many ways whales can throw their ‘BTC weight’ around to either push the price up or down to accumulate more bitcoins. Further, whales are not just individuals and can be an organization like a bitcoin investment fund as well.

Utilizing Buy and Sell Walls

    Whales in a sense don’t even have to trade their bitcoins to affect the market as they can also bluff with buy and sell walls. In cryptocurrency markets, exchanges use an order book to facilitate trades where a buyer can set up an order to buy or sell at a specified price other than the spot price. For instance, if the market drops traders will usually buy at a lower bid and sell if the price reaches a higher level. In order to place an order in the exchange’s order book, you have to legitimately own enough funds to cover the order. This means a whale and even smaller traders in many ways can bluff and make it seem like a buy or sell walls exist. However, often times large buy and sell walls disappear just before the price gets close enough because a big player was just bluffing. Nevertheless many buy and sell walls are very real and can change the odds rather quickly if they manage to liquidate someone’s assets.

OTC Markets and Dark Pools

    Sometimes whales don’t purchase or sell on traditional exchanges because their holdings or orders could cause a stir in the market. For cryptocurrencies over the counter trading (OTC) or “dark pools” is where big buyers and institutional traders can purchase vast amounts of bitcoins without being seen by the public eye. Dark pools are similar to OTC trading as they are usually found on exchanges that enable ‘off the record’ trades which ensures a whale’s moves are more private. Typically OTC markets and dark pools only allow traders who purchase an abundant amount of bitcoin at one time and set minimums for entry. 

[Janeth]

we are all fishes swimming in a fish bowl but whales are the huge creators they swim in the ocean.
they make waves and eats everything so try to swim with them

thank for the wonderful explanation, I understand now and learned.

[loaddebitcard]

In my opinion, whales are  exchanges. And they have become property of bankers. In their hands, exchanges are a strong and dangerous tool.

Whales is a special word for a fatcats, very rich people. I don't know what made you think that whales equal to exchanges but this is wrong

[luan la]

Whales in the crypto market are meant to be the only people who hold a large amount of coin, they are people with a lot of assets, they can use the coin to make that coin, dominating the bull market. variable or can be reduced a lot

[maliha tahir]

Whales are Large speculators who can contribute in excess of 1000 btc and much more and they can move the market all over with their btc volume each trade have whales

[Osiris0]

Someone who has 3k+ BTC and he can dump the prices when he wants to buy or pump when he wants to sell. Most of the whales have trading bots for this as well...

[rumexx]

Whales are holders of much quantity of any coin. They have influence over the market price of that coins. They really determine the performance or otherwise of the coins. If they want the price of the coin to dip they will dump the coin into the market creating massive supply and of course the price will fall (dip). Likewise they can create artificial scarcity by  with holding their coin from the market then there will be scarcity in the market then the price will rise.

[nerove]

Whale is investor who got big summ, lets say if marketcap of coin is 10m and he got 5m , he can easily manipulate price so he is whale.

[nhinhi]

i think, anyone who has 1000btc in the market can be called whale. They can dump anycoin

[chocopapaya]

So everyone has told you what a whale is, now let me give you insight into two different kinds of whales:

The btc whale and corporate stooge whale.

The btc whale is the guy who got into btc in it's early days and has been mining it since forever.
They typically have amassed over 1000btc.
They are active in maintaining the network and have dabbled in other blockchain projects.
These guys are our shields against the corporate world.
They mostly have no intention of cashing out and firmly believe in crypto's future and adamantly support it.
They also push and innovate (and argue amongst themselves) which guarantees a great future for all blockchain technology.
Well, this is a huge generalization but this is the norm with this kind of whale.

The corporate stooge whale is someone or a group of individuals that collectively hold an insane amount of btc.
They use a network not unlike super pacs to pool resources together make strategic purchases, and to move the market in their favor.
One of the best examples of this is bitcoin cash.
Last fall, the lead developer on bch gathered a bunch of corporate stooges and together they managed to devalue btc while at the same time pushing bch from $400 to $1800k in just 2 days.
Since then, bch has never gone back that low.
These kinds are not your friends and only have their own interests in mind.

[btcrut2017]

what is whale and why they can manipulate the market and how did they do it? I'm curious about that.

My understanding of a whale is that they are those persons who are wealthy enough to buy coins and dump these coins if they want to create a manipulation on the price of cryptocurrency. Mostly whales are percieve as a negative force to the crypto world.

[asriloni]

In my opinion, whales are  exchanges. And they have become property of bankers. In their hands, exchanges are a strong and dangerous tool.

Whales are not exchanges itself. It's a group from those people are holding more than million dollars worth of cryptocurrency. That's really wrong to say whales are the same with exchange site and it's definitely not true.
Some people are calling someone as a whale if he was having millions worth of assets in the crypto form. I think you are understand about that dude.