Do whales really control the market, or is that a myth

[xindoa]

whales can not controll but manipulate like said before. escpecialy with smaller coins. and coins on few exchanges. if a coin is only on 1 exchange its easy to set orders to manipulate everything.

[Beck09]

The factors that control prices of btc are numerous. And there is no denying the fact the whales can play a part.
Btc works on supply and demand principles.

With huge capital injections or withdrawals, the market can tilt

[Jetakenare]

Is there any evidence that these mysterious 'whales' really control the bitcoin market, or is this a myth generated as people try to understand why bitcoin prices go up and down?

https://cdn.dribbble.com/users/9964/screenshots/4614868/whale-mafia-shirt_1x.png

1st rule of Whale Mafia ,

Is you don't talk about the Whale Mafia, Capisce?  

Anyone that breaks the rule, end of swimming with the fishes.  

https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/animals-whale-killer_whale-mafioso-crime-criminal-dre1307_low.jpg

Really apt! If I were a whale,I definitely won't be advertising it for the whole world to see. These sudden price spikes and drops can only mean that there is a conscious effort to manipulate the markets. Certain people don't want bitcoin to do well. It's that simple and only business!

[NoviceInvestor]

Thanks for all the answers.

I do agree that whales can bump the price a bit (in either direction) by buying or selling a big chunk.

However, I've read comments on newspaper columns suggesting that whales are a murky conspiracy going far beyond just buying and selling. One commenter accused the journalist of being paid by a whale to write an article. Which to me looks a bit of a conspiracy theory.

It should be possible to look at purchases of BTC around big movements (such as the recent $5800-$6300 jump). However, even in articles claiming that Tether is printing tokens to boost BTC, the relationships between issues of Tether and BTC jumps wasn't that obvious.

My current belief is that while there is some manipulation, that the primary factor controlling BTC price is standard herd behaviour.

But, I don't see a small number of whales having enough control to create major sustained movements.

[wiik]

I believe they somehow affect the price . Those telegram signal/pump groups (which i believe are handled by whale group) are actually manipulating some coins , which in my opinion affects btc . Since , (maybe) after some people see that theyre going to pump a certain coin . Theyre gonna sell their BTC instead of HODL'ing for a quick profit which could sometimes be a trap . So yeah , just my opinion . Im not a veteran nor an analyst in cryptocurrency  

[sitnibtc]

they don't control the market, i think they just try to manipulate the demand with their tons of coins, that can cause some panic selling and lower the price so they can buy more coins at lower price

[zolfa]

this can not be proven, but you can analyze every crypto market fluctuations, I read that predicted more than 1000 people or whales have 50% bitcoin assets in the world, with each individual having $ 105 million.

half of the bitcoin market is controlled by them, so every time, whales have an important role to make waves.

[penig]

"Whales" are a boogeyman to explain irrational trading, and justify why you are sitting on huge loses (or substantial gains).  In regular markets, whales certainly exist, they control large fund that they can move market... a few % here or there, enough to make them and friends substantial profits through leveraged positions.  In currency market for example, you might have a trader controlling $1bn, he only needs to move the market 0.1% in his favour and make a $1m profit for the day, trebles all round.

In crypto im not convinced they are the same creature, the financial instruments aren't available.  A whale may buy up a crypto but trying to sell down the market to buy back is risky, they have to first accumulate a position then sell it to then buy back.  What if it stays low?  On the other hand the volumes and amounts needed to shit the market are relatively small.

Though really most the large movements are simply irrational, lacking real fundamentals to anchor value, the technical analysis and day trading dominate sentiment.

[Direwolve735]

Chainalysis determined that there are only 1600 wallets containing more than 1,000 BTC. Together, these anonymous addresses hold almost 5 million coins, which is the third part of the whole bitcoin market without accounting for inactive wallets. Owners of these wallets, called whales, control a significant part of the market, but not all of it.

[btcluisdiki]

Whale investors were the ones involved in the manipulation of the crypto market typically with bitcoin. These whale investors have huge amount of btc and makes a scenario that could create a bad news about bitcoin and because of it's volatility, it can affect it's market value causing the fluctuations to occur. Once the market has not been moving deep down, whales then buy huge amount of btc and hodl whie waiting again for another market uptrend then sell again gaining huge profit.

[meanwords]

We all know that investors who have large sums of capital is called a "whales". If someone have that much money, I think it's only logical that they would try to manipulate something for their own benefit. They are the reason why if not all, most of the markets of cryptocurrency are having pump and dumps. They can spread as much FOMO as they want to other people which affects the price where the same goes for FUD. They create fear and hope which manipulate the people and market in the process.

[Wendigo]

Is there any evidence that these mysterious 'whales' really control the bitcoin market, or is this a myth generated as people try to understand why bitcoin prices go up and down?

I don't really believe in it because there is no evidence of the same happening. However, the whales are actually the big money hoarders so they have some controlling interests on the price of a cryptocurrency. But one thing I always fail to understand and I have asked this same questions to many places in this forum. Not yet received a satisfactory reply yet.

Lets assume, I hold 100,000 of bitcoins. So as a whale, why would I want the bitcoin's price to go down? If the price increases, my net worth will be increasing and I will have more purchasing power. So I fail to understand people, when they say that whales are behind this price crash. How and why?? Can anyone provide a proper understanding?

It's very simple mathematics. Let's say 1 Bitcoin is worth $10. A whale has 1000 Bitcoins and he wants to accrue more. What can he do to achieve this fast? He starts selling a portion of his stash  and pushes the price of Bitcoin down to $9. Let's say he sold half of his coins. Now the public starts to panic sell and the price goes even lower to $4.5. Now the whale can buy back the coins he sold at $9 for $4.5 a pop. He effectively doubled his coins. Now he has 2000 Bitcoins at $4.5 each. But a lot of other people start buying again and the price goes back to that $10 threshold. The whale is happy with his 200% profit.

Pump and dump 101.

[Xester]

Is there any evidence that these mysterious 'whales' really control the bitcoin market, or is this a myth generated as people try to understand why bitcoin prices go up and down?

The market is a game of trading. And of course common sense will tell us that even without any evidence to back-up the claims we can still be certain that it is a reality. If you have a 1 billion dollars and you bought bitcoin at this point of time then surely bitcoin will increase in value tremendously and if you already meet your expected income and sell 2 billion dollars worth of bitcoin value what do you think will happen to the market. Also if you have that huge amount you can play the value of bitcoin in the market and it can cause panic among smalltime bitcoin holders.

[BrewMaster]

Is there any evidence that these mysterious 'whales' really control the bitcoin market,

not exactly evidence but there are some (lets call it) 'signs' that can point towards market manipulation. for example one of them that these days has been the hot topic is the Futures Contracts. people say in order for the whales to make profit in them they are dumping the price here so they can make profit there then they buy bitcoin with all that money. the dates and times match and there is not much evidence more than that.

or is this a myth generated as people try to understand why bitcoin prices go up and down?

partly this is true too. usually when people see the drops they start saying "whale manipulation" and whenever there is a big rise they call it "natural rise". in both cases we have natural rises and falls and manipulated rises and falls.

[honey7]

Yes there is an evidence that tells that marjet is controlled by whales. They have good sources by which they spread fake rumours and market comes down. It has become a monopoly now.

[carlisle1]

It isn't that hard to figure that out even if you don't have actual evidence. Logically, if you have enough coins to manipulate the market to your advatage, why won't you? And i think there have been several instances where a single transaction from the same wallet address bought or sold enough coins to move the market.

You got it right dude,theres no concrete evidence about that manipulation from the whales,but logically i guess it is,since they can do everything because of large amount of bitcoin they have and may use it as andvantage,and as i believe the same reason thats why US government are now into this issue to investigate about manilulating

[iamMhew]

Is there any evidence that these mysterious 'whales' really control the bitcoin market, or is this a myth generated as people try to understand why bitcoin prices go up and down?

the evidence are in the markets, and yes whales really controls the price of bitcoin in the markets. when whales are moving, a big waves coming from them, the volatility of bitcoin happens after whales moves and suddenly all the price and volume change. in a normal view, it is like a normal scene that has a normal flow of business in the crypto markets, but if you think more deeper, all things can happen and that thoughts really exist and happening.

[BestW1shes]

I think that whales really influence the market, because it is unregulated

[lablab03]

Is there any evidence that these mysterious 'whales' really control the bitcoin market, or is this a myth generated as people try to understand why bitcoin prices go up and down?

base on my research it's true that whales is the only one who can control the growth rate nowadays which is also known as a "big player" in the market , because of their huge contribution on the progress , that can cause manipulation  that's why also there's a sudden up and down of price .

[CrytopiaRaRa]

They said whales are big people with a lot ofmoney to invest.Its really possible that they can control the market because they have aa lot of money that can manipulate the market and taking advantage by others to create a big effect the market,