Yes but keep in mind that the whales that make these 20-50 million dollar bids/asks they always have a risk incase some other whale takes that trade for them. There were times in the past when some whale was spoofing and he got caught on the other side of the market when some other whale just as large just took his bid or offer because he wanted to take profit. Then what does he do?
Or, it could simply be the exchange whales telling each other, hey, let's benefit from a bit of shifting around. It shows that volume's good on our platforms, it shows also that whales and rich peeps trust us, and it only costs us a few dollars after a few txs. It's not like these whales don't know each other too, even if they're not at exchanges. The community would have been really small back when people were mining and sending to each other.
No I don't think its the whales who are telling each other by posting large bids/asks. Honestly I am pretty sure there are tons of whales out there that trade against themselves. Whales aren't worried about small retail traders front-running them but they would be more concerned about some large whale which takes their orders and profits instead of them.
The reason why the spoofs are there is because its most likely to trick bots. I noticed 2 things. When in an up-trend there is a large bid that appears close to the fair value, then usually within a few seconds there is a large amount of market buys that are executed. This can be very profitable if you are fast.
Second thing is that in a down-trend, when there is a large bid that is all of a sudden removed from the market, usually there is a market selling that is going on. Many people notice this and they set bots so they catch the action. However keep in mind, sometimes these might be traps.