The sea and tides are bigger then any whale, the only thing that counts in the end is consensus or a recognised trend. A whale or large seller or buyer can influence a market and if it was set to tip anyway then it can catch and form a bigger move but its not certain and if the whale is just incorrect in their selling then its effect is dissipated into the larger amount of buying of selling and it matters not even with their size. We have globally distributed markets, multiple nations, languages, cultures and time frames so its not clear who is in charge or how it might vary each day week or season. BTC is quite unique not as easily influenced in this way, we should acknowledge its still quite a small market and obviously dollar has a large influence and so government but I never judge anything quality by the lesser negatives that exist, it should not be diminished that easily.
The sea and the tides could be bigger than whales, but let's remember when the whale is big enough it can create a big wave as well, not that it would be destroying the sea, but it would be disturbing the small fisherman above from all the waves.
When whales are trying to do something they don't do it because they want to destroy the market or anything, they are doing it so that they could fool the small timers and make a bit more money, when those small timers have few thousand dollars invested, enough of them makes it worth it.
If you are a guy with a million dollars and go into some altcoin with a bit of interest, like 5-6 million dollars volume per day, and you start to slowly buy in bulk, like 50k per day, it suddenly has a huge increase and just get out with your profit and be done with it. That whale didn't destroyed the market, hell it even helped some people, but it also made its profit from the fools who though increase was legit.