Holders are currently just waiting patiently to see where the market is going, we are in a period where patience is really needed.
Don't know if it's related but I do remember the price started to crash during the end of December just a few days after the BTC Futures decision.
I agree with the article, (it's a good one) the BTC Futures is the open door for manipulation (like it happened before with others Futures)
Conclusion
The markets are comprised of some really smart hedge funds, crypto whales and algorithmic traders. They knew the exact dynamics that cash futures could bring to the still nascent Bitcoin markets.
Whether they actively took advantage of this to enrich themselves, no one can really tell. What is clear though is that cash futures didn’t bring the avalanche of institutional adoption many were hoping for.